


Granite

by jadziadrgnrdr



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, M/M, Minor Character Death, Soul Bond, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 06:00:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadziadrgnrdr/pseuds/jadziadrgnrdr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a dystopic world where Alphas and omegas suffer political and biological dangers, Zayn and Harry have forged a bond that gets them cast out of the only home they've ever known.</p>
<p>Then they do something miraculous. They survive. With the help of friends they navigate a foreign world using the strength of love, compassion, and dedication.</p>
<p>(The rape is described after the fact by a character that has experienced it. Not graphic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Leave Taking

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my betas Ivy and Sarah. Also my tester Jasmine. Love you all for indulging me.
> 
> Don't blame them for anything that might have slipped through the cracks, blame me!
> 
> This story started off from this gif:
> 
>  
> 
>   
> [](http://tinypic.com?ref=fekig3)   
> 
> 
> It looked like Zayn welcoming Harry back home after a day at work or something.

Harry stands beside Zayn more erect than he’s ever stood in his life. Everyone is used to the slightly bent, slightly self-effacing goofball with the voice of warmed brandy and spice. He hasn’t been that boy in weeks, not since he and Zayn had been found out and the community that raised them, the only people they had ever known, started treating them like the worst criminals to ever exist. Their only crime was doing as nature and the Spirit demanded through their blood. 

Harry figures it is a function of his status that makes Zayn weep so openly now, staring at his mother and father where they stand with his older sister, Doniya and his younger sister Waliyha. His youngest sister Safaa was in such hysterics when he’d said goodbye that morning that she had to be sedated and put to bed. 

Zayn had lived a life of privilege, status and reverence, the son of the High Shaman poised to take his place on the Council and lead the spiritual life of the community. Now he would be a soft, ill-equipped bit of prey in the wilderness that existed beyond the Oasis’s protective barrier. Zayn’s mother Patricia wails, her body leaning forward toward her son. High Shaman Yaser holds her in check by the root of her neck but allows a steady stream tears to escape his own stoic cast. Harry takes Zayn’s hand.

“… It is because of these high crimes that you both have committed against the community that from this day forward you are never to return to the Protectorate of Oasis for the rest of your natural lives. The penalty for your return will be public death by hanging,” The officiant recites dispassionately, as if she was reading out the upcoming weather report.

Harry had not shed a tear today. To be honest, he’s happy to leave this place with these hypocrites and liars who dare pass judgment on him and Zayn. He also knows he’s getting off easy because at the beginning of their trial Zayn’s father had claimed that Harry had forced himself on his impressionable omega son in an attempt to save face and garner sympathy for Zayn. Had Harry been found guilty (pretty much a certainty), he would have been castrated and put to death, his offending knot hung up in the square for a week or more. Zayn would never have been able to ascend to High Shaman but he could have stayed an acolyte for the rest of his days, and that was not a hard life by any means. 

Harry had been orphaned at such a young age he didn’t remember what it had been like to be in a family. He wondered if his mum or his dad would have perjured themselves to save him from an unpleasant fate. He’d like to think they would have. The funny thing is that Harry’s bond made it next to impossible to cause Zayn any real harm even at the threat of his own grisly death, so he couldn’t really blame Yaser for his machinations to save Zayn and did not dispute the charges even though they cast him in the worst possible light. 

People talk about how much control an Alpha has over an omega, especially their own omega, but the control goes both ways. Harry knows it’s his purpose to love and protect Zayn. It was solidified the moment Zayn and Harry Bonded a night not too long ago under the twin full moons. 

Harry had tried to stop himself. At the first tickle of shared sensation Harry reared back, unsure, tried to free them both of what was happening. Zayn, on the other hand, welcomed it. It is said in the bits of the sacred texts that find themselves discarded whenever politically expedient, that an omega chooses his Alpha and Spirit guides them together. Zayn chose Harry the moment their eyes met at the Founder’s Day Fair three years prior. 

From then on Harry would come to the shrine for services at least once a month just to look at Zayn and hear him sing the Song of Light. Zayn would sneak and meet Harry behind the orphanage and they would talk for hours. Some nights the omega would steal pinches of sacramental cobra leaf from the priestess’ chambers and roll a thin, tight little spiff for them to share. 

 

As Harry tried weakly to stop himself from moving inside Zayn, Zayn responded by increasing the speed to the swivel of his hips, opening himself further to Harry’s thickness and then bearing down and coaxing Harry’s knot into him. 

“Yes please, Don’t leave me. I need you,” he’d pleaded. Harry thrust into Zayn a few more times and then he was coming. It had begun. 

Harry could feel his spend spooling out of him into Zayn. He could also feel a large part of who he was, pouring into Zayn as well. He wasn’t particularly religious but he absolutely knew that there was such a thing as a soul the moment his and Zayn’s touched and then melded together as one. 

Zayn had been on suppressers since his heat began so there was no risk of pregnancy but they were too close, too in tune. Every conversation was a mumbled affair with them finishing each other’s sentences. They were becoming one, long before this night. Zayn knew this as he begged off sick and snuck away from his nursemaids to meet Harry at their spot. He knew it as Harry approached him sniffing the air, eyes losing focus as he reached for him. 

Zayn’s wedding had been moved up because the merchant he was promised to had been given an opportunity to expand his trade house in another part of the Oasis. He meant to move away and take his new bride with him. 

Zayn hadn’t even been asked. He was just supposed to go. He would not take over his family’s shrine. Instead there was a Chief Acolyte position in a new shrine. He was still on his way to be High Priest; indeed, this move actually had accelerated him a year or so. But duty to family and congregation be damned: Zayn had chosen his Alpha and he wasn’t some overbearing well-bred rich man who gave generously to the shrine, smacked his lips when he ate, and talked loud but didn’t say anything. 

_“I can’t leave you Harry, I’m just…” Zayn had whispered._

_“Oh Zayn, gods Zayn, it’s only you… only you,” Harry had chanted._

 

Even if Zayn had not completely refused to go along with his father’s story of rape and corruption, had not stormed into the secret court taking place just outside Harry’s jail cell declaring it all lies, the prescribed punishment when a betrothed omega illicitly Bonded to an unapproved Alpha was to have the omega’s heat induced and the original Alpha given the chance to Bond with the omega in front of his illegal bond (the dowry of course halved or forfeit altogether). This process generally took multiple breedings to even solidify. The omega’s first bond would not break but it would be suffocated and made a clawing hurt inside their gut as the new Alpha insinuated himself in his psyche. The anguish that would be caused to the illegal Alpha was enough to lead to long-term mental illness in some cases.

Duel exile, then. They might last a day or a week in the badlands away from Oasis but at least they’d be together and that’s really all that mattered to Harry. It was the last act of kindness Yaser was able to finagle to save his son, who had stated plainly that he would kill himself before he submitted to a new Bond. It helped that the merchant no longer wanted Zayn, so there was no one to knot him against his will to “correct” the mistake he’d made with Harry. Harry suggested they get a stud Alpha to do the honors, then volunteered his services. The guards beat him for his insolence. 

Harry is not only part of one of the lowest castes but an ‘unclean’ one as well. Prostitutes and minstrels. At first, it had been easy for the community to blame him fully and see Zayn as the corrupted and sad victim because of his highborn blood and holy caste. Besides, he was the poor, fragile omega wasn’t he? Everyone understood the dominant spirit of an Alpha, but after Zayn had spoken about how he’d chosen Harry and cited works in the text that directly condemn arranged marriages, it couldn’t be denied that he was a partner in this crime, not a victim. 

Fragility is not what is on offer today either. Even through his tears Zayn stands defiant beside Harry. Even his choice of dress, his marital robes, is a testament to his will. The cream layers of light material catch the wind and move around his feet like milk being poured into a pitcher. His eyes are lined simply, his hair combed toward his face framing his dark, fine features. He wears a purple sash by rite of birth, a rite that would soon be nullified when the sentence of exile strips him of all that he had ever or could ever claim. It’s him saying to his parents and the community _“You can’t take anything of importance from me. I am still me and this is the man I have chosen to marry.”_ Harry is in awe of him. He grips Zayn’ hand tighter as he surveys the crowd.

As Harry looks out at the sea of faces, people who had watched him grow up or who had paid money to the comfort house to hear his songs, he sees Old Woman Baracide, who had taught him the scales in her antique-filled living room. She looks at Harry hard through her wizened eyes. An old man clutching his young wife by the upper arm practically snarls at Harry. Harry doesn’t know this ugly, lumpy betaman, but his wife is all too familiar. Harry’s reminded of the few times the comfort house had studded him out for his potent Alpha seed as two small boys with curls and emerald eyes peek out from behind the young woman’s skirt at the serious scene before them.

They give Hary and Zayn one last chance to submit to corrective measures, and on their final refusals, they are marched to the mouth of the gate in the protective shield. then led out with one small bag apiece. The guard captain rereads their sentence to them; extracts a small bit of blood to create a DNA alert, then steps back through. The barrier becomes whole again, and the last sound Zayn will ever hear of home is of his mother finally letting out the screaming wail that she’s been holding back all morning, and his little sister Waliyha yelling his name.

Harry and Zayn are on their own.


	2. Fire and Water

_8 Months Later_

Harry returns to the flat midday. The beauty of working the split shift is that he has plenty of time to go home and be with Zayn before he has to go back in the evening to finish his overnight. Working the night shift also means more money, enough of a boost that they can afford Zayn’s vitamins and some extra food.

Harry moves quietly through their small flat, mindful that Zayn might be sleeping. He sleeps a lot lately. When Harry reaches the bedroom he sees that Zayn is in fact in bed but he’s not asleep. He’s reading a small book with his second-hand spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose. He’s wearing a simple tee and jeans, laying sideways weight rested on his left forearm holding the book. He’s engrossed and he doesn’t notice Harry, so Harry is able to drink in the sight of his beautiful omega. 

Zayn had gone from a lovely boy to an exquisite man. His eyes are still the cut gems Harry fell in love with. Now he keeps his hair shorn on the sides with a high spikey quiff like the artist gangs they encountered on their cross continental trip from Oasis. Long gone was the smooth hairless body in shimmering robes. Part of the reason is he is no longer on inhibitors. Also, Zayn did not have hours and means to groom and pamper himself each day like he did in Oasis. 

Harry likes him better this way; he’s always preferred males just a bit more than females, so the soft dark hair sprinkled liberally about his angular jaw felt like heaven against Harry’s own smooth face. 

_“Who’s the Alpha of this relationship? You can’t even grow a proper beard, mate!”_ Zayn likes to crow, eyes dancing with mirth. This usually leads to Harry demonstrating to Zayn just exactly who the Alpha is between them, laying claim to Zayn’s body expertly, leaving him panting and longing for another lesson.

 

A small rumple of concentration plays in the space between Zayn eyes. He might be reading work material or it might be one of these impossible brain twister books he likes so much. He moves to turn the page and his tee pulls against his too-present ribs. 

Harry frowns. Zayn is too small. He’d always been thin and small boned but since they had left Oasis, staying fed has been an ongoing struggle. Harry shifts his weight a bit at the door and the minute movement makes Zayn notice him and jump up nearly off the bed. 

“It’s just me, love.” 

Zayn laughs clutching his chest. His laugh slides directly into a jaw-cracking yawn. 

“You scared me, Haz. How long were you over there lurking?” 

“I wasn’t lurking!” Harry grabs his own chest, looking mock wounded. On Zayn’s pointed and amused expression, Harry relents.

“Okay, maybe I was lurking a little.” He crosses the room in three strides of his long legs and lands on the bed in front of Zayn. Zayn immediately reaches for him and smiles. His fingers find the slightly damp curls at the back of Harry’s neck and pull him in for a kiss. When they’re close like this, it’s easy for Harry’s sensory empathy to pick up on the buoyant happiness Zayn feels at having Harry return home for these few hours. He can also feel Zayn’s exhaustion, fear, and a mild spot of nausea underneath it. 

Being of one body can be disorienting and dizzying and rewarding beyond belief. They sit in silence for a while just kissing occasionally and sniffing each other’s skin

“How was your day?” Zayn asks sleepily when they’ve settled down some.

Harry makes a noise halfway between a groan and bellow. 

“That good, huh?” Zayn sets his book on the end table then scoots them both up on the bed. Harry toes off his boots and they clunk onto the floor with two thuds. Harry settles into the crook of Zayn’s neck while Zayn idly runs his fingertips up and down Harry’s bicep.

“It wasn’t so bad. I’m learning a new machine now. It has all these safety protocols and such. The more they train me the less likely they are to chuck me through the door I guess,”,” Harry says, and then it’s his turn to yawn. “How was your day?”

“Pretty good. The agency sent over some transcripts they needed audios of. Five audios. Five credits each.”

“Nice.” Harry holds up his fist and Zayn taps it with his smaller one.

“Are you hungry? I made bit of stew.”

“When I wake up. … You should maybe eat a bit more while I’m sleeping. I’ll grab whatever’s left.” Harry always tries to make these things sound casual but they never do.

“I ate already, Harry,” Zayn says with a smile and a sigh in his voice.

“How long ago?” 

“I don’t know, a few hours ago?” Harry can feel the small pique of irritation in their bond even as Zayn tries to keep it out of his voice. 

“I’m not trying to be difficult…”

“I know, Harry. I know you’re only looking out for me.” Zayn looks down at his nearly concave belly. “But there is hardly anything in the pot left. You can’t keep giving me your portions.”

“Watch me,”,” Harry says, rubbing over Zayn’s belly. Zayn sniffs a laugh.

“And then what happens when you pass out at work, huh, Harry? You need your strength just as much as I do.” Zayn leans over and kisses the top of Harry’s head. “I love you and I know you feel like you need to do without to give to me… and I don’t know if that’s a ‘Harry’ thing or an Alpha thing, but I have to look after you too. It’s my job.” Zayn tighten his arms around Harry’s shoulders.

Harry’s responds with an impressive snore. 

“I’m glad we had this talk, Haz,” Zayn responds while laughing. Then he rearranges himself more comfortably, trying not to jostle Harry too much, and joins him in slumber. 

Zayn wakes Harry up for his night shift with kisses on his neck and then with tickling fingers all along his side. Harry quickly overpowers him and they wrestle around in their creaky bed for a few moments until they’re winded and their hair is all over their heads. Zayn wiggles out from under Harry’s careful hold and throws his arms in the air, declaring victory.

“I’m fairly certain what you just experienced was the opposite of victory, love,” Harry says before swatting Zayn on his ass. 

“We’re playing by Granite rules,” Zayn declares haughtily.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes, if you get the pin, but you get a hard-on, you have to give the point to your challenger.” Zayn says very seriously, looking at how Harry is protruding from his work pants. 

“Oh?” Harry pauses to undo his pants with one hand. They fall at his ankles and he steps out of them smoothly. Zayn backs against the wall and licks his lips, eyes already going half-mast and heated. Harry’s cock is huge in the small pants he wears; the full outline of it and his balls are obscene straining against the light blue material. Harry’s work shirt was already half unbuttoned, so it takes him no time to shuck it. Zayn can see that Harry’s tip has risen above the waistband and he licks his lips again, breath coming faster. 

“Harry, we don’t have time, for this. You have to have your dinner, then get ready for work.” Zayn hasn’t taken his eyes off Harry’s cock. Harry pulls his pants down and steps out of them. Now he’s fully nude, and there is barely a millimeter’s space between them.

“I want to give you your prize.”,” Harry says.. Zayn finally looks up at Harry’s face, again confused. “I want to reward you for your very impressive wrestling win,” Harry states. With that he falls to his knees, unzips Zayn’s pants, and pulls his hard cock out. He wastes no time taking the entire thing down with one go. He knows Zayn is right about there being no time for Harry to knot him, so this will have to do. It’s more than enough if Zayn’s crying moans and snatching at Harry’s curls is anything to go by. Harry pulls away, and Zayn whines like a cat. Harry nearly yanks Zayn’s trousers and pants off so he can work three fingers into Zayn’s slick hole. From then, it takes mere moments for Zayn to come down his throat with a yell. 

Harry stays down on the floor with his sweaty forehead pressed to Zayn’s hip, hand pumping lightning fast on his member.

“No, Haz wait, let me…” Zayn gets Harry to stand then changes places with him and presses him up against the wall while Harry continues to jack himself. Zayn leans in and begins swirling his tongue over the top of it and sucking at the head. Harry has a much higher tolerance for direct cock stimulation than Zayn, so he lasts a fair bit longer, but when he can feel himself coming he makes sure to warn. Even without knotting, an Alpha comes too much and too hard for anyone to be expected to swallow. Zayn pulls off, and in a last moment of inspiration, reaches over to the night stand and uses an empty water cup to catch Harry’s load. He pets Harry’s hip as he shakes through it. 

Afterwards they make out and giggle with each other for a bit, all loose and happy. Zayn muses they could sell what he’s dubbed the ‘Harry Smoothie’ to a beta looking for a magical virility potion. Then they go into their kitchenette, Zayn reheats Harry’s dinner and prepares a modest hot cereal of ground oats and dried fruit for himself. Harry looks like he’s going to protest, but Zayn cuts him off, telling him that he’s had his stew for the day and he is happy to eat cereal now.

“You need to have more calories and more protein, Zayn.”

“And you need to eat the food I made you before it gets cold.” Harry’s stomach agrees because it takes that moment to make an angry gurgling noise. “See!?” That breaks the tension a bit, but it’s not until Zayn ignores him and digs into his own bowl of food that Harry begins to eat, shooting concerned glances over at Zayn’s small frame every few moments. 

Harry always worries over Zayn, but now Harry is all the more concerned because Zayn is with child. This is not the first time that this has happened. A month after exile Zayn’s inhibitors were completely out of his system. Inhibitors are a luxury that no one in the Wastes ever even bothers with. They are as expensive as a month’s worth of food and most omega pregnancies end in miscarriage anyway. 

An omega cannot carry a child to term if he is malnourished and that’s how they lost their first child. They didn’t even know Zayn was pregnant until their biotech friend, Niall, explained to them that Zayn’s fever and bleeding wasn’t caused by illness, but by the baby his body was rejecting like poison. 

Harry and Zayn didn’t want children and tried hard to control themselves during heat, but without the inhibitors that had been a mark of Zayn’s entire life, Zayn cries and moans miserably during heat and his scent keeps Harry in a constant state of arousal. Zayn stays flushed and incoherent and he begs and writhes until Harry knots him again and again. 

They had been lucky the first 2 months with no protection but the third heat had been the charm. Harry thought it unduly cruel that and omega would conceive a child while undernourished, only to flush it out of his system when the baby started taxing the strained resources of his body. He wished they couldn’t get pregnant at all until they were healthy and strong. This pregnancy, though, they are determined to do right.

On Harry’s payday, they sit and scrupulously plan out their month’s expenses, then they do the shopping. Zayn’s work is part time to start, so all of it gets saved in the baby fund they keep separate from the monthly expenses. It isn’t even enough to cover the fees for a midwife, but they don’t verbalize their mounting worry. How are they going to raise a baby when they can barely make ends meet as it is? Spirit will provide a way. It has to. 

After dinner, Zayn sends Harry back out of the door with kisses and a small sack of dried fruit and nuts. He washes his hands and face before praying and then climbs into bed exhausted. Back home he had servants, plenty of food to eat, and security from harm. Now he doesn’t have any of that but what he does have holds so much more value because everything they had, they had gotten on their own. He settles into sleep with an undefined feeling of satisfaction in his heart.  
********

Unlike the morning shift, Harry doesn’t know anyone on the night shift. Mostly everyone is on autopilot. A lot of the newbies get this shift, and the turnover is prodigious. Even the managers on night shift are standoffish, only being seen when someone is not making quota or not living up to expectations in some other way. Harry only has to finish out this week working the split. It’s both a blessing and a curse. They need the money but Harry feels like a zombie half the time.

As Harry engages in the mindless repetitive tasks, his mind drifts to something funny Niall said earlier in the day. He’s grinning when he looks up and makes eye contact with a sallow looking betaman who quickly looks away. 

Niall and his partner Liam are the first people that Harry and Zayn met since they left Oasis that they could rightfully call friends. They had thought that all they needed was one another against the world, but Niall and Liam taught them they didn’t have to be alone.

Harry met Niall on his lunch break in the first week at the factory. Niall came bounding up to him, red faced, complaining about the narrow minds of the eggheads in the tech department. Harry was confused because he was pretty sure he’d seen Niall report to the tech department. When he said as much, Niall gave him a startled look. 

“I may work up there with ‘em but I ain’t one of ’em.” He’d stated as if this were an apparent thing. To underscore Niall’s point, a clutch of men and women Harry recognized from working on the assembly floor with him came over. They swore at the blond and called his parentage into question. They swatted heartily at his back, and he cursed a blue streak back at them with a joyful smile on his face. 

It was certainly more boisterous than Harry was used to back in Oasis, but he understood it; evenings at the comfort house could certainly get ribald. He wondered how Zayn would react in the same situation, and even after all they’d seen crossing the Wastes for weeks, and living in Granite for months, he concluded that Zayn would probably be quite alarmed, sure that a fight would break out at any moment.

“Aye! What’s your name and what put that smile on your face?” Niall asked him. Five pairs of curious eyes swung in his direction.

“I’m Harry… I started earlier this week … in assembly.”

“Name’s Niall Horan, and this shower of cunts is me crew.” 

“ _Your_ crew, huh?” A dark brown woman with lovely eyes asked with a smirk before popping some granola into her mouth. 

“You know it, Caroline. Don’t you go getting cute in front of company.” Niall replied. 

She just rolled her eyes and sent Harry a conspiratorial smile. They were all betas save for one. Harry could smell him from where he sat beside Caroline, who was leaned up against him as they eat from the same lunch bag. Mates then. 

They all introduced themselves in turn. The other Alpha’s name was Bressie. Sometimes Harry gets a bit nervous meeting new Alphas, because unless they threatened him or Zayn, he had no feel for the contest of it. The micro power struggles that can often arise between Alphas for no real reason other than testosterone emission have never held any interest for him. 

“Nice to have another Alpha ’round. All these betas are doing me head in.” Bressie said with a smile. Harry instantly relaxed and smiled back at him. Bressie turns out to be a good work mate. The others work in other sections. Niall works in a totally different department, but Bressie and Harry’s workstations are fairly close together. They don’t’ have a lot of time to chat, but they work well together. 

Niall and Harry get close because Niall insists on taking Harry out for pints at the completion of his first week. They immediately clicked and when their mates meet it quickly became a foursome. They now have a standing weekly appointment for dinner and cards.

Liam and Niall live on what’s known as a ‘Safe Block’. There are regular patrols and guards at the entrances of each building. It’s still considered the lower sector but it’s just on the cusp of the upper sector. Harry suspects it’s only a few more years before the rents skyrocket and they’re able to purge the last of the ‘unwanted element’ out so they can subsume this area into the upper sectors. The building even has a working elevator, unlike Harry and Zayn’s sixth floor walk-up. 

The week after Harry’s split schedule ends, Harry and Zayn arrive, and the door is ajar. They can smell the food Liam is preparing from the hallway. Neither of their hosts are paying attention when Harry and Zayn enter the apartment because they’re deep in discussion. A loud discussion. 

 

“Of course I know how barbaric those places are, Liam, but you can’t make yourself responsible for this whole fucked up system! There’s a lot of wrong shit in the world. I don’t fancy being left alone because you have a savior complex,”,” Niall says as he stirs something in a pot.

It’s a familiar fight. Liam’s ties to the Alpha Front make Niall nervous. When they’d met, Liam had just been liberated from an Alpha Farm in Sector 7AG in the eastern wards. All manner of nefarious happenings went on there and the bust of the Alpha farm was just one in a huge raid, 

When Liam told Harry and Zayn about his past he’d done it with only the smallest hitch in his voice. The concept was simple: Alphas were brute animals that, if given too much freedom, would enslave and rape, so it was best for everyone if they were controlled. 

Liam and the other Alphas spent hours each day pleasuring and inseminating a parade of betas and the occasional omega. Alphas don’t need recovery time like betas so as soon as a minder could come in and swab the Alpha’s cock down with antibiotics, he could be readily stimulated into hardness and the next customer ushered in. Liam checked out most days, knowing that he was not a brute or an animal, knowing that he mattered beyond his knot. 

“No one should go through what I went through, Niall. I thought after all this time you understood that.” Liam speaks evenly but he holds his body stiffly as he carves meat and puts it into a serving dish. Harry and Zayn shrug off their coats and immediately start setting the table using the plates stacked on the shelf. 

“Well, then, shit, Liam, why don’t you become a lawman or something? Work in the Municipal Affairs? Why do you have to put yourself in with the Front?” Niall whispered that last bit because that’s how you mentioned the Front, you never said their name loud enough where anyone could hear. “When’s’ the last time your little friend Dirk came home bloody with a bruised rib, Liam, or is that an honor he saves for his ‘soldiers’?”

“Don’t you dare belittle my work, Niall. Name me a lawman who gives a shit what happens out in the outer wards except for the ones trying to appear tough on crime. So they stage a big raid. Couple of months later there’s a new farm sometimes on the exact same spot as the old one.” Liam’s voice gets harder with each word.

“Well, then you be the guy that gives a shit, Liam! You!”

Zayn and Harry’s eyes had been as big as saucers the first time they watched Liam and Niall fight. Liam seemed to notice how taken aback they were and ended that first argument by telling Niall to “Stop scaring the enclave kids, why don’t you?” Tonight he relies on a similar tactic.

“Hello, Harry and Zayn, our guests and beloved friends. Please help yourselves to the snacks. Dinner will be ready shortly,” Liam says loudly. The argument is over. Niall looks a bit put out but then his face softens.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly from his place at the stove.

“S’alright.” Harry and Zayn respond quietly. 

There are real, fresh green apples chopped up on a cutting board next to blocks of cheese. Zayn and Harry start nibbling on them right away, taking care not to look as hungry as they actually are. Later in the evening, Liam will discreetly pack some food for them in takeaway containers. Harry is grateful, but he’s also mindful that Liam makes less money than him working as a courier. While Niall makes a pretty decent wage, a lot of their joint moneys go to medical expenses and rent. Niall has mild but chronic Vrolik Syndrome, which can be completely debilitating but for him it basically accounts tohaving ‘dodgy knees’. Liam suffers from depression and PTSD, which require daily medication to keep under control. Most weeks, they don’t have much more in their cupboards than Zayn and Harry.

Dinner discussion winds it’s way back to politics eventually, but Liam and Niall are able to keep themselves from a full on argument with Zayn and Harry there to mitigate the discussion. 

“I never said, omegas _didn’t_ have more access to upward mobility, Liam.” 

“Oh goodness, Zayn, I know numbers and formulas. Why are you coming out with all these big fancy words for?” Niall moans.  


“What I _did_ say was that the fates of Alphas and omegas are connected, so even if we get along in the society a bit better, we still have most of the same issues. Even in the enclaves we are the minority, and quite frankly even before the Fall our numbers had been on the decline.”

“I didn’t know that.” Liam stops for a second to think about that. “Do you know why?”

“Environmental changes were blamed. Society. Just like how here in Granite and in other cities outside the enclaves it’s like we’re afraid to mate and Bond.” Zayn shrugs. 

“But the thing with that is unbonded omegas are actually desirable to betas whereas Alphas are seen as competition, a problem.” Liam quickly looks over to Niall. “We’re the exception not the rule.”

“Same here.” Harry says reaching for Zayn’s hand at the same time Zayn reaches for his under the table.

“Look, I know the Alpha struggle is real but it’s going to take, Alphas, omegas, and progressive betas working together to make things a bit better for everyone I think.” Zayn says.

“That I understood and wholeheartedly agree with.” Niall says, placing a hand on the back of Liam’s neck and rubbing at the knot of tension there.

Harry isn’t one to keep up too much with the news or politics, so he pays attention to Zayn and Liam. He always learns something new when they speak. 

He doesn’t know whose side to take in Liam and Niall’s ongoing battle. In Oasis, being a low caste Alpha did lend itself to a certain experiences. No one could force you to stud against your will, but it was definitely the thing on which people placed the most value (and most judgment). Harry liked to sing and perform, but he could make more money studding in one night than he could in two weeks singing at the club. 

Conversely, it was seen as base and vulgar to proposition even a low caste omega for paid sex. People still did it, but generally if a high caste Alpha propositioned a low caste omega as a consort or possibly a mate, it would elevate the omega’s status instantly. Harry knew firsthand how easily society dehumanized Alphas, preying on long held fears about how Alphas were much more plentiful and domineering before the Fall, so in theory he understood why Liam’s work with The Front was so important to him. 

At the same time he understood that a bond was more important than all other things. He would never do anything that hurt Zayn or leave him vulnerable. Their Bond is biological, a thing only an Alpha and omega could forge, but no one could be around Liam or Niall for more than 10 minutes without realizing how intensely they care for one another. So when Niall cussed Liam down to his toes about being reckless and playing with fire, Harry felt the pain of it. Niall was angry because if Liam got pinched by the law or killed in some Front ‘combat action,’ then Niall would be alone to deal with the tatters. Harry wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy, let alone someone who was closer to him than anyone had ever been, save for Zayn.

 

It didn’t’ take long for Zayn and Harry to realize that knowing how to read and write was a tall order for most people beyond the enclaves. Even here in the crowded metropolis of Granite, the rich relied on scribes and scriveners provided by agencies, like the one Zayn walked into on the second day they were in town. Zayn is even more special because he knows how to read and write both modern and pre-Fall languages. Harry’s level of education is far lower than Zayn’s, but he is still in better stead than most Granite citizens. He sometimes helps Zayn read and summarize extra work he takes home, but he’s not anywhere near as fast or skilled so the work at the factory suits him down to the ground.

“Am I boring you?” 

Zayn’s eyes snap open. “I’m s-sorry Mr. Cowell. I don’t … I’m really sorry, sir.” 

Cowell smiles. He has a rep for being a hard ass but Zayn has learned over these past few weeks that he’s actually a funny, thoughtful man. Still, Zayn is no fool. He has not told Cowell that he is pregnant and has no intention of doing so until he is heading into his final stage. He’d waited for months on the agency backlog doing part time hours from home occasionally traveling for hours to get to clients all the way in the Manor District. He is finally making a halfway decent wage. Getting fired now is not an option. 

“I’ve been feeling under the weather, sir. It won’t happen again.” Zayn sits up straighter and places his fingers more steadily on the keys of his recording unit.

“Are you sure you don’t need to go home?” Cowell says.

“No, no… I’m really sorry,”,” Zayn insists. He realizes then that this may be Cowell’s way of disciplining him, making him lose out on much needed hours, but he relents soon enough after encouraging Zayn to drink a glass of water.

“So what was the last thing you got down, Zayn?” Zayn reads off the last line he had typed into the recorder. Cowell seems relieved that Zayn had not missed out on too much and resumes his dictation. Afterward he does give Zayn a small pile of correspondences and bids him to go home and create responses to each by the next day. Zayn doesn’t mind, because by the looks of things, it isn’t much work and he would have a chance to prepare a meal and take a nap before Harry got home from the factory. 

 

The hours at the factory are long and the pay is shit for what was expected but of the factories, this one is maybe the safest and the kindest to its workers. The best part about work, for Harry, is getting to know his coworkers. Harry and Zayn have never met another Bonded Alphomega couple since exile. It’s strange how something that is so common amongst their own people is so foreign out here. Bressie is genuinely astonished when Harry tells him. Then Harry goes on to say they are from Oasis he whistles loud and long. 

“Now I get it. I couldn’t place it. Of course you grew up in one of the enclaves.” He laughts and shakes his head. 

Harry bristles and demands to know what he means. When he and Zayn had been cast out of Oasis, it was with the certainty that they would not survive in the Wastes for very long. The stories about rape gangs and brigands and post-war mutations that they had been told ever since they were children were largely true, but there were also work crews, rangers, mutual aid caravans, and tough little towns that weren’t much more than a few clapped-together, ramshackle buildings standing defiant against any of the dangers the Wastes could cook up. 

Harry and Zayn were enough of an oddity to attract some level of attention, but they were also pretty savvy about which attention was dangerous and meant it was time to move on. Sometimes, it was the odd pair of eyes lingering over the lean lines of Zayn’s body. Sometimes it was a beady-eyed beta talking a little too brazenly about Harry’s knot. At the end of the day, enclave born or no, they were not rubes nor marks. There were enough busted up hands, jaws, and cracked ribs dotted along their path from Oasis that could attest to this.

“Easy tiger,” Bressie says, amused. “I just meant you come off as a bit more refined than the usual rabble around these parts. You’re not always swinging your knot around. It’s a compliment, believe me.”

“Well, thanks. I guess.” Harry smiles amused at his own defensiveness. Bressie isn’t a bad sort. He’s actually pretty mellow for an Alpha himself. Still Harry can’t help but keep a bit of his guard up, natural instinct and that.

“Then when you told me you were bonded … well I should have put two and two together a bit more quickly, probably. Folks don’t go around biologically tying themselves to other folks in the outerlands. Too much of a weakness.” 

“Zayn makes me strong,” Harry says quietly but instantly.

“I bet he does.” Bressie smiles fondly at him. “Caroline is the first woman in my life that I can say the same about.”

“Cheers,” Harry says tipping his thermos of brew in salute. 

“In fact she’s been on about applying to an enclave town out this way, called _Shegara_. Ever heard anything of it?”

“Not really… we traded with some of the ones close to us but that’s about it. Not a lot of contact with anyone outside,” Harry replies. “I didn’t know you could apply to one actually. I know you couldn’t apply to Oasis.”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s the whole point of them places. Protection and insulation from the madness of the world, yeah. … But Shegara had a bad sickness some years ago. Wiped out a lot of folks. They’re trying to rebuild. Looking for folks who can help ‘em. Skilled laborers and such. Little genetic diversity to boot. The application fee is--” Bressie pauses to whistle again. 

“Sounds rough. Even if Zayn and I wanted to go to a enclave sounds like we wouldn’t be able to manage it money wise, anyway.” Harry realizes he might have just insulted Bressie and Caroline’s dream, so he tries to say something encouraging. Bressie just laughs a bit.

“Yeah you can’t get that kinda scratch up without some extra curricular money coming in that’s for damn sure.” Harry looks over at Bressie trying to suss out if he’s trying to say something or not. 

“Look, I could hook you up with something if you want. I wasn’t gonna say anything to the others but Carrie and I noticed you eat pretty lean.”

“I don’t need any charity…” Harry begins. 

“Wasn’t offering. I’m just saying. Rich folks’ll pay good money for a knot.”

Studding. Harry is actually a bit surprised Bressie would just come out and say it so plainly. Bressie takes his surprise as something else. Judgment maybe.

“Look, I’m sure you ain’t had to deal with that where you're from but in Granite, if you’re gonna keep afloat it’s one of the ways. Not as bad as knocking over folks and stealing their shit.”

“Yeah, no I … before I was Bonded I did a few times.” Harry finds himself in placation mode.

“Well, well, well enclave living isn’t as pristine as I’d heard,”,” Bressie adds, “I don’t know how it works with you being Bonded and all but if you wanted some work I know a guy…”

“Thanks, and yeah I physically could … probably but I wouldn’t. I just … I can’t. Not anymore.” Between the thought of being with anyone beside Zayn and the thought of what he knows had been done to Liam for years of his life, Harry is certain that he could never stud again, but he is curious. He takes a few moments to chew a bit of his sandwich before asking, “And Caroline’s okay’ with it?” 

“Yeah, … I mean she’s not _happy_ about it, but it’s not like I’m two-timing. I’d never do that to her. It’s just we’ve been saving up to get into Shegara so we don’t have to scrimp and scrap and fuck our way to survival ya know. It’s worth it.” Harry nods in understanding then something occurs to him.

“Wait, these rich people are betas yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So you knot them… how does that even work?” 

“A fist full of omega pheromone pills and a bucket of lube,” Bressie says with an amused smile. Based on Harry’s thunderstruck look, Bressie laughs and insists that most lucrative ventures aren’t easy. “Besides,” he continues. “It’s not all bored socialites and perverts. Alphas can breed betawomen that no betaman even could, and there is nothing wrong with helping someone start a family in this cocked up world.”

“Well, when you put it that way it’s almost like your dick should get a Humanitarian of the Year award, Bres.” Bressie barks laughter. 

“It should!” he agrees. They hurl a few more dirty comments at each other until they both sober, and Bressie changes the subject.

“So … what did you do to get kicked out of your town?” 

“How did you…”

“You don’t up and leave safety and four squares a day to scrape by in the metropolis if someone doesn’t have a blaster to your head telling you to take a hike.” 

“Fair enough.” Harry bats his thermos cap back and forth with the tips of his fingers, picks it up and takes a swig before he answers. “We loved each other and we weren’t supposed to so they made us go.”

“Yeah, I hear the rules in those places are a bitch.” 

“Guess they made the rules that seemed right after the Fall but well it’s been over a century…”

“Time to loosen the fuck up huh?”

Harry grins. “Yeah something like that.” 

The bell rings.

“Shit, speaking of rules,” Bressie says clapping Harry on the back companionably. “Better get back to the floor before the bosses give our spots away to someone who’ll do the work for half the wage.” Harry snickers at the sad truth of it and they head back to the doors marked assembly. 

 

*******

It becomes harder and harder to wake Zayn in the mornings and then when he arises he stays disoriented for nearly fifteen minutes while Harry feeds him sips of water. It’s time for both of them to come clean with their bosses and request the necessary time off. Cowell was clever and had even had more formal schooling than most of the clients for which Zayn had worked, but Alphomega mating wasn’t something that was studied by anyone but certain medical staff outside the enclaves so when Cowell says, “You lot sleep through it, right? My wife screamed through hers,”,” Zayn felt the need to explain things to him.

“It’s not so much sleep, sir. It’s kind of like … like a coma my body goes into so it can prepare a way for my pod to emerge.”

“Fascinating, Zayn.” Cowell says thoughtfully, “So there is no pushing, no labor right?”

“No, our body just changes … shifts to push it out.”

“And do you come out of the coma right after or…”

“Maybe an hour?”

“Does it hurt you.” 

“According to the books, your body is a bit sore especially near the opening that forms in your um side but mostly you’re just really exhausted for a few days after.”

“I had never thought about how different it could be for omegas. Thank you for telling me, Zayn. This is so interesting.” Cowell says.

“You’re welcome, sir.” Zayn says quietly. “I’m sure the agency can send you a replacement for me until I’m ready to return.” Zayn brings them back on topic.

“Oh! Yes, of course. Take the time that you need and congratulations Zayn.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cowell.”

Zayn of course had left out the part where outside the enclaves; healthy, full term omega-born births were rare. This near ruined world and its undernourished population just couldn’t sustain the conditions that would allow for it. He eats three times as much as normal but doesn’t put on as much weight as he really should. Harry all but hands over the entirety of his meager portions but it never seems to make a difference. 

They don’t have to tell Liam. After a certain number of weeks Zayn’s smell tells the story. Liam discreetly starts sneaking more food into their weekly goody bags, but when Harry and Zayn finally come clean and actually verbalize it to their two best friends, it turns from celebration to Niall cussing them all out. 

“You had my boy keeping things from me for weeks,” .he rages. “And you! How could you not tell me, Li?”

“It wasn’t my news to tell, Niall,” Liam says, his face a squinting mask of pleasure as he fusses over Zayn. “Just be happy you know now.” 

Niall takes them grocery shopping, preempting any protests with a very heartfelt. “Fuck off, seriously.” 

 

Harry is well liked and being one of six Alphas in the whole company makes him a novelty so he generally doesn’t have issues getting the supplies and shifts he wants. He’s still nervous because asking for two or three days off in a row is a tall order when there were so many unemployed betas out there who would never have this issue. For his part, his manager, Desh, just laughs. 

“You lot are so complicated. No wonder they’re so few of you nowadays!” Harry doesn’t even bristle at the unbelievably insensitive comment because when Desh is laughing, it means that Harry is about to get his way. 

Anyway it isn’t like he’s lying. Zayn may very well have a little beta baby and Harry would love it to death, but he really, _really_ wanted an Alpha. It isn’t lost on him that one birth could not stem what seemed like a decree from Natural Selection that the betas would inherit the earth, but each new Alphomega kept them away from extinction for just that much longer.

Harry gets the time off approved so now they just wait. They use a bit of the baby fund to get alert bracelet to wear so if Zayn is alone in the house when the time comes, he can tap a button on his that will make the one Harry wears blink a red light and vibrate. Harry’s coworkers notice the alert bracelet straight away and all of his friends throw an impromptu baby shower in the mess. 

Cowell changes his mind about a replacement for Zayn so since Zayn can’t leave the house, Cowell makes arrangements to have a decent work terminal delivered to his home so Zayn can work until the big day arrives. Work is a godsend, it keeps Zayn’s’ mind occupied with something other than worrying.

Zayn is eating pretty well now. Liam stops by on his courier route to bring him sweets when he can afford it and to check up on him. 

In the end, it’s Liam who finds him slumped on the couch, unresponsive. He sees the bracelet has already been tripped so he knows it’s only a matter of time before Harry comes back home. He arranges Zayn into a more comfortable-looking position and places a cool rag over his head. When Harry bursts in, looking flushed like he’d run the whole way home, he makes sure to be across the room from Zayn. Good friend or no, Harry simply would not be able to deal with another Alpha being close to his mate right now. 

Harry falls to his knees beside Zayn on the couch. He pets his hair and kisses his face, making soft little grumbly moans in the back of his throat every few seconds. Niall comes in a bit after him. Liam and Niall greet each other with a kiss and then Liam suggests they leave. Niall seems like he wants to protest that he wants to help.

“There is nothing we can do. It’s all on them now,”, Liam says. Harry is breathing heavily, his body movements jerky. He’s in full on protection mode. 

“We’re leaving, Haz. It’s okay.I Call us if you need anything, okay?” Liam soothes. Harry still doesn’t say anything, just breathes and offers an apologetic look before scooping Zayn up into his arms and heading to the back room, ,kicking the door shut behind him. 

“Is this one of them Alpha things I wouldn’t understand?” Niall asks Liam as they leave. 

Liam just laughs and cuffs Niall lightly on the arm.

 

It’s the middle of the night and something is wrong. Harry was aware of it before he even becomes fully conscious. He awakens with a low noise somewhere between a moan and a growl. Suddenly he is fully alert and the first thing he notices is the sour smell coming from Zayn. His mate is bathed in sweat and his breath is coming out in labored chugs and puffs. Harry runs his hand along his side until he gets to the tender strip of skin that will grow into an opening where their pod will emerge. His hands come away wet, not with blood but amniotic fluid. Zayn’s mouth opens and he issues a pained whimper in his sleep. 

Harry can barely work the call terminal he’s shaking so intensely. A call to emergency services would certainly deplete their baby fund and still not be enough for full service care, so they call Niall who makes it to their apartment in record time and brings Liam. When they arrive Zayn is not even in full somnolence, blinking groggily and confused looking before dipping off into unconsciousness every few minutes. Harry was diligently swabbing Zayn’s body down with cool water and salt and kerima acid for its antibacterial properties.

Niall comes over and gently takes the washcloth from his hand. 

“I got it from here, Haz,” he says quietly, frowning down at Zayn, whose dark eyes have just opened a bit to regard him with absolutely no recognition on his face. Liam leads Harry out of the room gently, and Harry allows it, even if his body stiffens initially at Liam’s smell. He stays with Harry in the front room while Niall attends to Zayn. 

Harry drops off to sleep after a long while from sheer exhaustion but he doesn’t stay asleep long. When he wakes back up, Liam offers him a slice of apple but Harry can’t be bothered about it. Instead he starts randomly talking about the first time he and Zayn met.

_Founders Day was always the best day of the year. Day drinking was the norm from the lowliest servant to the highest born nobleman. The orphanage became really lax about the whereabouts of their charges so Harry would post up on one of the heavy traveled corners and sing. He could make a month’s worth of tips in just that one day if he kept at it._

_On this year in particular, Harry found himself leaving earlier than normal, excited to get started with his day. It wasn’t even _that_ much earlier but it was just in time to catch the Malik family’s carriage on its way to the shrine. Harry had never seen a carriage with as much opulence so he stopped his stride and stared. They were a handsome family. Three beautiful betagirls and mum, a handsome and striking betaman father and then the last face Harry saw was Zayn’s. It was like his entire life was just preparation for that moment. It was a physical thing, a kick in his gut. He knew that Zayn felt it too because as the carriage passed he twisted around in his seat and kept eye contact with Harry. _

“We proper had our mouths open the whole time, mate.” Liam smiles as he pictures the sweet memory. Harry laughs and then starts to cry and buries his face in his hands.

 

When the door opens hours later and Niall emerges, Harry doesn’t look up from where his face is still buried in his hands. He already knows.

“Harry, I’m so, so sorry. I did what I could,” Niall says tearfully. Harry doesn’t trust himself to speak but he knows Niall did all he could and he loves him for it, so he squeezes the beta’s shoulder as he passes him to go in and see his mate.

 

Harry enters the room and sits beside Zayn on the lip of the bed. The tiny bassinette they had bought when they first realized Zayn was pregnant lies discreetly on the dresser with a soft baby blanket over the tiny motionless lump inside. 

“I can’t do this again,”, Zayn says. 

Harry doesn’t reply, doesn’t brush the tears from his eyes. He just sits there, an Alpha who could not protect his omega or his children. A failure. He’d been selfish snatching Zayn away from the secure and safe life with his merchant where his babies wouldn’t die before they had even a moment of life outside his womb. Harry’s useless and in that moment he would give his life to return Zayn to his rightful home with soft robes, enough food to eat, and the promise of a future. Zayn startles him from the run of his thoughts by covering Harry’s hand with his. 

“I don’t regret this. I love you. I don’t blame you. I chose you.” He weakly coaxes Harry closer. Harry is so careful of Zayn’s small, overtaxed body as he lowers himself down beside him. They sleep for hours wrapped around each other.


	3. Something Great

_6 Months Later_

“He looks really good…. Strong.” Harry just smiles at Niall’s assessment as they stand side by side watching Zayn’s glider shoot from around the corner and drift as if in slow motion before kicking forward and passing them in a clatter. Liam’s glider isn’t far behind. Harry and Niall pause to offer roaring encouragement to their mates throwing their arms straight into the air as they do it.

“Yeah,” is all Harry offers in response but he’s smiling warmly. 

After they lost their baby – a tiny little girl who fit into the palm of Harry’s hand named Safaa for Zayn’s youngest sister – Zayn’s health declined. He needed to eat but a mixture of illness and grief prevented him from being able to keep down anything but broth and water. Those were the good days. On the bad days, Harry had to insert a feeding tube into Zayn’s nostril before he slept and sit awake worrying over whether he would make it to morning. 

Long hours spent staring at the sometimes-erratic rise and fall of Zayn’s chest were nights where Harry wondered what he would be without his other half, without Zayn. Widowed Alphas and omegas had a far shorter life expectancy than that of betas and the unmated. When Zayn was at his nadir, Harry comforted himself with that statistic and was able to breath more evenly because of it.

Zayn had made it out of the woods because he was strong, stronger than anyone Harry had ever known. Niall had helped care for Zayn and when it was clear that his expertise in general biology was not enough, he and Liam helped Harry pay for a certified healer to come to help make Zayn well again. She was a betawoman called Imani, but she seemed well enough versed in omega physiology. Not the least of her talents was having a calming and positive influence on both Harry and Zayn’s moods.

Zayn is still very thin, but he looks elegant, not breakable. The delicate cut of his jaw and cheekbones is fine, not gaunt. His skin glows a golden hue, not pallid and dry. Most mornings he struggles awake and works out at his own pace alongside Harry, and his naturally broad shoulders have become more defined. His lean soft stomach has hardened and formed into a chiseled six-pack. 

“How is it possible for you to grow more beautiful every day?” Harry had kissed into his collarbone just before they’d left for this evening’s outing. Zayn had laughed and ran his fingers through Harry’s hair pulling him up into a moaning kiss. 

 

A newlywed couple had bought out an abandoned warehouse, not far from Liam and Nialls’ apartment and converted it into an entertainment center called _El’s Nickelodeon and Attractions_. It was named for the wife, Eleanor but the most visible proprietor is her husband Louis. 

He plays the games with more exuberance than anyone and he wins a lot too. He trash talks horribly, curses loudly on the rare occasions when he does lose, and gives his prizes to families with small children at the end of the night. El usually handles the modest concession area with a helper or two. 

The dinner parties at Liam and Niall’s turned into trips to El’s soon after it opened. Niall insisted on paying when Harry and Zayn could not, threatening them with violence should they refuse out of pride. The cost was fairly reasonable anyway to make it feasible for the folks of the lowers to be able to come. 

The main attraction at El’s was undoubtedly **_“The best damn pulse glider track in the lower districts!!!”_** It was the plug line on the flier that piqued Niall ‘s interest even as he ruefully acknowledged it was the _only_ glider track in the lower districts. 

The other offerings are a small theater with a collection of shit films and badly damaged pre Fall news feeds, a small dance area off to the side, carnival style games, and an electronic game arcade. Most of the games attract a lot of attention even if the prizes are random and feature stuffed toys given over slightly to rot, and small novelty statues of unappealing beasties – on the days where there are prizes. Sometimes they run out for a week or more. 

 

Other things had improved in the past few months. Bressie and Caroline’s petition to join the Shagara Enclave had gone through finally which meant that the factory was in the market for another shift manager to take over Caroline’s post. With an endorsement from Desh and a sponsorship from Niall, Harry easily made it to the short list of candidates. Long hours of studying with Zayn and Niall helped him not only pass the verbal and math tests required to secure his spot but it helped him earn the third highest score of all the management candidates. . 

“Now all ya got to do is blow kisses and giggle or whatever the fuck it is you do all the time to get people to give you things,”,” Niall had declared 

“Heeeey,” was all Harry said but he was grateful for his ability to set people at ease and make them like him. He hoped that it didn’t’ crap out on him now.

It didn’t. Harry Styles becomes the newest member of the manager strata with all the rights and responsibilities contained therein. They called his mobile comm to let him know as he was taking the tube back to his apartment. He came through the door, swept Zayn into his arms and celebrated until they broke the frame on their bed. 

 

Now instead of long and odd hours toiling away on the assembly floor he has a more regular daytime schedule, less heavy lifting, and more money for their home. Desh is now Harry’s peer so he takes a lot of cues from him on how to be firm with workers when it is necessary. He likes to think he adds a bit more compassion though. 

He encourages his shift to help those who might fall behind quota as opposed to putting a lot of pressure on the one who had fallen behind. People who help others are given little incentives each pay cycle, such as twenty more minutes of lunch break or small useful prizes like credit chips donated from groceries and used clothing merchants. 

Harry feels truly accomplished for the first time in his entire life. More importantly he can afford to pay into the health plan giving he and Zayn access to healers and birth control. They still can’t afford pills but they buy suppositories for a reasonable price. Zayn inserts the bullet shaped pellets into himself just as he feels the fever coming on. It gives the scent of his heat a medicinal edge but it doesn’t stop Harry from pausing to breathe him in before thoroughly wrecking him for the rest of the night.

The scribe and scrivener agency where Zayn worked dropped him during his illness, but Cowell was ready to sever his contract with them, so they scrambled to hire him back making Cowell’s estate Zayn’s permanent placement. His hours normalized as well, and for the first time Harry and Zayn are able to move from always operating in survival mode to operating in living and planning mode. 

They spend most evenings watching vid dramas curled around each other or listening to music while Zayn paints and Harry writes in his journal. When they go visit with Niall and Liam they can contribute to the spread, and when they all spend the night at El’s Harry and Zayn can pay their own way.

 

Zayn and Liam finish their final lap. Liam had won the last heat but they seemed to trade the championship back and forth each time they race. They are walking back to the observation area, as Zayn takes off his helmet, red to match his shirt. Harry’s breath catches in his throat. A familiar ache is centered on his groin and a pulse of heat pushed off from his skin. When Zayn approaches, his tongue pressed behind his teeth, showcasing his happiest smile, he discreetly sniffs the air and his smile changes into something sharper.

“Well hello, Harry. You okay, babe?” As soon as Zayn is near, Harry firmly pulls Zayn into him. He very nearly places a possessive palm over Zayn’s ass but at the last second fans his hand out over the small of his back instead. Zayn is always amused when Harry gets like this, overwhelmed in a good way that he can illicit this reaction out of his Alpha by just walking toward him. Liam is smirking a bit but Niall’s beta sense of smell is telling him nothing of note is happening so he grabs Liam’s hand and asks what they should do next. 

“Whatever you want, love.” Liam brings their interlocked hands to his mouth and kisses Niall’s hand. For all his brashness nothing reddens Niall’s face and steals his speech like simple romantic gestures from Liam. It’s decided that they should get some food before Niall and Harry spend their tokens. 

Zayn and Liam are always easy. They head right to the gliders every time. Harry and Niall are more mercurial. They usually like to decide on one thing they can do together as opposed to two separate things, but the choice varies week to week. Sometimes it’s carnival games, sometimes the arcade but they all wind up on the dance floor, which is free with admission. 

“How are we gents doing on this fine evening?” Louis comes over; he’d taken a liking to their little group and the regularity of their patronage. Harry figures Louis to be around their age, with a quick sharp wit about him. He’s playful to the point of impishness but there is warmth there too. 

“Well that depends on what you have on tap tonight, Louis,” Niall states. 

“Ah, Niall, my friend, a westward caravan just pulled out from my stock house this very night in fact.”

“Westward? That means…” Niall’s eyes light up predictably. Zayn looks over at Harry and they chuckle knowing exactly what it means. Liam of course knows too so he let’s a little “Oh dear,” escape from his mouth before Niall and Louis exclaim in unison.

“DRAGON SPIT ALE!” They then go into a rousing rendition of the Dragon Spit theme song in deep affected baritones like the announcer. People are looking over at them, but once they register it’s Louis they dismiss the crew with fond half smiles. Harry is distantly aware of this as he presses his face into Zayn’s raven hair while they walk. Zayn supports Harry’s weight knowing that this little episode will pass in a few moments, and with no embarrassment for his Alpha if everyone is still focused on Louis and Niall’s antics. 

Of course that would be too much like right.

Louis is one of the rare betas who can sense the hormonal shifts between Alphas and omegas. It didn’t have any real effect on him, thankfully, but unlike Zayn and Liam, Louis treated subtlety as – if not an outright enemy – something that elicited in him a fair amount of distaste. That is why as soon as they’ve all reached the concession area and he is close enough for Louis to smell the lingering spike of Harrys’ arousal Louis shouts. 

“Oi, lads!! If you nip off to me washrooms do clean up after yourselves. It would take a year to clean off a wall all covered in Alpha spunk!” Louis feels compelled to do a mimed rendition of what that might look like, somewhere between a fireman losing control of his water hose and a conniption. 

Even through the fuzzy haze Harry feels in this moment, he is cognizant enough for his color to deepen a little. Zayn is mere days away from heat and that’s why Harry’s senses and reactions are more heightened. He feels only a fraction of the hunger that Zayn feels and none of the life or death urgency. Still he can’t help but lift his eyes to the washroom area for a wistful moment pulling yet another high-pitched cackle from Louis. Zayn is laughing too, but he’s rubbing small circles on Harry’s belly in placation.

“Oh, mate you’ve got it bad!” Louis crows.

“Stop it, Louis. Leave them alone.” Eleanor bumps him softly with her elbow as she walks up. 

“Oh here you are, woman. Come to spoil all my fun?” Everything about him softens when she’s near. His bombast is smoothed out to a joyful reverence as he smiles at her and wraps his arm around her narrow shoulders. She’s a bit taller than him but she seems to mold her lithe frame into his negative space. It reminds Harry of how he and Zayn are In fact all of them find it easy to express themselves through light touches, hand holding, and even the occasional peck on the mouth. Demonstrable affection is rare in Granite. It just doesn’t seem to be part of the culture. Harry reasons this idiosyncrasy is one of the things that make them gravitate to each other.

 

There is a broad vid screen on the back wall of the concession area. The booths are designed to pick up the music on the PA or the vid screen sound. Apparently the last inhabitants of their booth were listening to the TV but it didn’t matter because as soon as they settled in and ordered they started to talk amongst themselves. 

There is a short lull in the conversation so they are able to catch the tail end of a news report. The anchor speaks about some “pro-feral” initiatives being brought up amongst the lower district managers. Louis remarks that he’s happy to hear some good news for a change while Zayn looks up from his food and peevishly groans at the screen. Liam’s jaw clicks. Harry’s face even pinches a bit then looks over at Zayn and lightly rubs his fingertips up his arm. 

“They talk about us like we’re another species.” Zayn says. Louis looks over at him confused, then surveys the faces of his booth mates and grows even more confused. Harry maintains eye contact with Zayn remembering the conversations they have had about it. 

“Zayn hates when people call Alphomegas ‘ferals.” He explains to Louis.

In Granite, in fact everywhere Harry and Zayn had been in the wastes before settling here, people used the term and nothing made Zayn close off and grit his teeth more.

“What’s wrong with that?” Louis asks sincerely. “It’s just the term. No one means anything bad by it.”

“Calling us feral is insinuating we’re animals, but we’re not. We’re humans.” Zayn states quietly, still looking at his mate. 

Zayn had watched a program weeks before hosted by what passed for a scientist in Granite. He spoke about how “ferals” were primitives well on their way to extinction. He cited their biological monogamy and their heat cycles in lieu of beta women’s menstruation as clear markers of inferiority. He chalked up the phenomena of brainwave attunement between mates, (or soul bond if one were a religious sort,) to instinct. Zayn already had a bad taste in his mouth about the term feral but this bogus program had really just killed any part of him that could leave its use unchallenged. 

“Looks like you’re rubbing off on Zayn, Liam.” Louis says with an easy smile. Louis is a great bloke. He never means to offend and he often has keen insights about things, but sometimes he doesn’t take things as seriously as Liam thinks he should. 

“It’s just that they talk about us like beasts, it makes it easier for them to treat us like that.” Liam offers quietly. Niall instinctively puts his hand on Liam’s thigh and leans into him. Harry pulls Zayn into him and places a light kiss on his temple.

“Hey,” Louis says softly reaching toward the center of the table to get Zayn and Liam’s attention. “I get it. I’ll… I understand and I’ll make sure not to speak loosely in the future, yeah?”

Both Zayn's and Liam's shoulders drop away from their ears at the sight of Louis’ genuineness. 

When Louis asks how enclave folks referred to Alphomegas, Zayn explained that in Oasis one’s Alpha/omega/beta status was just part of their gender identifier you were an omegamale, or omegafemale, Alpha, or betamale/betafemale. 

Louis asks more questions about enclave society. Harry answers questions where he can but he leaves most of the replies to Zayn who has years of education and religious study under his belt. Louis is respectful and asks good questions. Zayn and Harry thought it would be hard to talk at length about where they come from knowing they can never return. It is the exact opposite actually. By the time they finish the discussion, neither of them knows why they avoid talk of Oasis. It feels good to remember. 

There always comes a time each night when Louis takes El into his arms and slow dance her over to the center of the small dance area even as those surrounding them grind to primal beat or flail about to electro crash music. Their absurdly romantic little two-step is like a signal for their little crew to dance the lingering bit of work tension away, setting off their weekend just right. 

\

When they get home, Harry and Zayn keep each other up continuing the conversation about Oasis, sharing memories from their childhood. It ends in tears as Zayn realizes this will be the year that his little sister, Safaa, starts her acolyte training at the shrine. But even the tears are good. Necessary.

 

Three days later, Harry meets Zayn after work and they to go to the merchant exchange for groceries. On their way home, Zayn has developed enough of a fever for Harry to notice through their intertwined fingers. He looks over and there is a light sheen of sweat on Zayn’s upper lip. Zayn looks at him and smiles distantly. 

Thankfully the tram to their sector is running on schedule. Unluckily, the one they catch is crowded. Harry holds Zayn against the wall with his larger body. Even his vise like grip on Zayn’s hip doesn’t keep his omega from rutting against him every few minutes with an apologetic look in his eye.

“It’s ok, darling. We’re almost home.” Harry says directly into Zayn’s ear.

There are betas around looking put-off. Some are leering. There are at least two or three different Alphas in their vicinity and it’s starting to agitate Harry. Thankfully they make it to their stop without incident and nearly sprint home. Most of the walk to their domestic module is on Beggar’s Row. Usually Harry and Zayn like to patronize the assorted downtrodden stationing themselves along the walkway selling found trinkets and crafts. 

Though, Zayn and Harry’s circumstances had improved a great deal in the last few months, most folks in the lower districts of Granite are still just scraping by. Today, unfortunately, Harry can only offer an apologetic look to his regular contacts without breaking stride. 

Moments later the couple are behind their locked apartment door. The groceries are left by the threshold, clothes dot a trail to their bedroom and Harry is kneeling between Zayn’s spread legs opening the suppressor packaging. Zayn is on his belly rutting up against the bed purring low in his throat. Harry takes the slick white pellet from the package and works it in to Zayn with he tips of his fingers. Zayn lifts his ass off the bed, stiffens and comes for the first time before the medicine is fully in him. It takes at least three minutes for it to dissolve, so Harry massages his back, his ass, and his legs, presses kisses to each shoulder and the small of his back. 

“You are so beautiful, Zayn. I’m so lucky that you belong to me.”

“Yes,” Zayn whispers still pulsing against their bed. “I-I’m yours.” 

Harry growls at that and thrusts three fingers into Zayn dripping wet hole. Zayn bucks and cries out another bone rattling climax.

“You don’t even need my knot,”,” Harry growls. “All you need is the bed to rub against your prick. ”

“No,” Zayn breathes like Harry has committed some great blasphemy. “I need…I need you, Harry. I’m yours.” Zayn’s voice is pleading and broken. Harry pulls his fingers out slowly, using his hands to spread Zayn open and look at his glistening opening. He takes a deep breath filling his nostrils and his lungs with Zayn’s arousal.

“If you need me … still… be still.” Harry’s voice is starting to slur. His Alpha hormones are flooding his blood stream. He can no more stop himself from thrusting into Zayn than stop a rolling tide, but he knows if Zayn submits to him completely it will be all the more delicious for both of them when he takes him.  
Zayn whimpers again slowing his hips until finally he stops rubbing against the mattress. Every muscle in his body is twitching and Harry can feel it under his hands. 

“From now on you come on my knot only.” Harry is pulling Zayn’s hips up, Zayn automatically arches his back wantonly giving him easy access. A rivulet of slick slides out of Zayn and drips down onto the growing wet spot beneath him. Harry’s fat cock, which extends well past his navel, thickens even more at the sight.

“Yes, yes only you. I need you. Please,, Harry,” he whispers. The tether to Harry’s self control snaps, so he holds Zayn’s right hip while guiding his cock into him. He goes balls deep on his first thrust, connecting with Zayn like a thunder clap. Zayn spasms around him then shoots another load that makes it all the way to the headboard. Harry doesn’t relent. He places his right hand on the back of Zayn’s neck pushing him forward and holding him down, rutting into him like a locomotive. 

They lose themselves in communion. Neither one of them is cognizant of anything but the places where their bodies are connected. Zayn comes another time, his cock untouched. Harry feels it through, both the physical sensation of Zayn clenching around him and also their bond. He pulls Zayn up by the hips, his strong arms yanking him back toward his cock while he rams forward with his hips. The headboard bangs cacophonously, Harry growls deeply pausing intermittently to bite out the word _Mine_. Zayn’s hips torque vigorously, his passage clenching rhythmically. His arms are locked, legs spread, ass high, and his fingers are bent like talons into the mattress. The fitted sheet is rumpled and drawn in around them. Zayn is wailing higher than he ever has before. There is no sound quite like a heated omega being expertly serviced by his Alpha. This is certainly isn’t the first time their neighbors have heard them do this and it definitely won’t be the last. 

There is an implosion in Harry’s core. His stomach clenches and the sensation travels down and through his cock, erupting inside Zayn. Zayn last orgasm shoots in a short arc and he collapses onto his forearms sobbing. Harry let’s out a long yowl from the back of his throat as he fills Zayn with seed and stretches his canal with his knot. His hips don’t still completely until they simply cannot move anymore, his bulbous knot heavy and wedged deep. He’s lost in it for a long while as wave after wave of pleasure ripples down his spine.

As usual during heat, Harry’s fugue clears before Zayn’s. Harry can see the gooseflesh raised all over his arms and neck. Zayn is trembling a little, sobbing quietly beneath him. Harry sees that both their top sheet and blanket have been dashed to the floor during their coupling so he slowly maneuvers them away from the considerable wet spot tucking Zayn’s slight body beneath his.

“Shh, it’s okay, Zayn. I have you,” he whispers into Zayn’s ear, lightly gliding his finger tips through his hair in slow strokes. The petting brings Zayn back to him in stages.

“Harry?” he says groggily. 

“Yeah, love. You okay?” Zayn stretches his legs out and Harry eases off him as best he can but the knot tugs a bit and another wave of pleasure kicks a gasp out of him. Zayn settles back down again and Harry resumes resting his body weight on top of him. 

“That was…” Zayn just starts a deep throaty chuckle, wiping his eyes. “Didn’t know you had it in you, babe.”

“In you, more like,” Harry replies. His knot is still too large to extract from Zayn but he’s finally done coming so it’s only a matter of moments, really.

Zayn groans at his corny play on words but it’s through a big smile so Harry still considers it a victory.


	4. Night Is Coming Down

Being enclave born meant that both Zayn and Harry thrive on structure. Even when they were traveling they established small routines to keep themselves sane in an insane world. When they first moved to Granite they had been living in the slums beneath the sectors. It was hard to establish norms in such a chaotic and claustrophobic environment. That living situation lasted all of 2 weeks when a drugged out Alpha tried to accost Zayn on their stairwell. 

He had just gone to put out the rubbish when a large man wrapped a hand around his bicep and tried to abscond with him into an adjoining shelter muttering about “tearing his little omega arse out the frame.” Zayn had shouted for the man to let him go, even punched him, but to no avail. Harry had heard the scuffle even in the shower, but there were always scuffles in the slums. After a while it just became white noise. The man pulled Zayn into a small alcove across from he and Harry’s room. Deeming this place private enough, he reached for the front of his tattered britches. It was Zayn’s white-hot spike of fear that brought Harry flying out of their shelter in his small pants dripping wet. Between the two of them they were able to stomp the wall of Alpha into a bloody heap on the ground. He was clearly too far gone on stims for his natural instinct to be repelled by the smell of a bonded omega let alone give up on a fight before he was too broken to do much but lift his head creakily. When they left the bastard he had been breathing but if that had changed Harry would not have lost sleep over it.

When they got back into the house Harry roared at Zayn, “What the bloody hell were you thinking leaving the house alone, Zayn!?”

Zayn ignored the marrow-deep urge to bend under the intensity of Harry’s tone and the angry fear suffusing their bond. He winced and slightly hunched his shoulders before taking an angry breath and squaring them. A heavy stone of revulsion sat in the pit of his gut at the idea of what that man was about to do to him, and Harry yelling at him was not doing anything to make him feel safe.

“Don’t, Harry. Just don’t.” Tears stung his eyes but he refused to fully break down in front of his angry mate. He puts his hand up and starts to walk away. Harry catches his hand then pulls him back. When Zayn turns to him, Harry took his face into his own hands and locks eyes with him. Zayn doesn’t say another word, nor does he try to leave again because Harry was shaking just hard as he was. Without a word they wrap themselves around each other until they could both breathe again. 

Harry redoubled his efforts to find work, knowing that if he stayed living in the slums, he was going to wind up being a killer or a corpse. Living in the lower districts wasn’t entirely safe either, but there was some semblance of community and lawfulness. More importantly there was more opportunities and access. Mobility between the sectors and the upper levels was almost as unheard of as it was in the caste society of Oasis but it was a theoretical possibility. 

 

Yes, they enjoy structure, so when the end of their workweek rolls around and they don’t received a call by the normal time from Niall or Liam telling them to start to make their way over to El’s, they frowned at each other. Zayn calls them and Niall picks up on the first ring sounding out of breath.

“Niall? What’s wrong?” Zayn says in place of hello.

“Oh I … I’m sorry I forgot to call you guys. It’s … Liam isn’t … I didn’t’ want to bother you with this…”

“With what, Niall? What’s wrong with Liam?” At that, Harry comes to stand beside Zayn.

“He’s… he walked out. We had a fight and he left two days ago and I haven’t heard form him since.” Niall is speaking calmly but it’s the kind of calm that reminds Zayn of walking across a chasm on piano wire.

“We’re coming over.” Is all Zayn says before he hangs up the phone. Harry is already retrieving their coats from the rack behind the door knowing Zayn will explain on the way.

"We were fighting, You know the usual, I knew he wasn't being totally honest with me. Kept having all these tense conversations with his Front buddies like something big was going down. Finally I just got tired of him lying to me and I told him he either was straight with me or he needed to hit the road. I know that was extreme but I never thought he'd pick those thugs over me." On the last word, Niall’s voice cracks. He is no longer angry. He’s broken.

Since Harry had been promoted, he and Niall didn’t have the same lunch break anymore. They had to make it a point to stop by each other’s workstations now. Harry had been so bogged down in his new responsibilities that he hadn’t thought to check on Niall for ages. Niall had been his stalwart since he’d come to the company. He was family. How could Harry have been so wrapped up in his own work – which seems so trivial now – and miss what was going on with his brother? Just as he’s about to apologize for being so unthinking, Niall continues explaining.

“He has these … these episodes. Doesn’t wanna be touched, not by me or anyone. He gets so angry with himself. I always tell him not to feel bad about it. He doesn’t listen. Tells me I should go find myself a man who can stand being touched. I tell him I don’t want anybody but him, cause it’s true. I never … I thought I could be enough and if I tried to just see him through the tough times we’d be alright but it’s like he just got worse and worse. I don’t know. Maybe I should let him stay with them guys. They seem to understand him in a way I can’t. I’m just his dumb beta boyfriend.”

“Are you finished?” Zayn finally speaks up, and to both Harry and Niall’s surprise he sounds angry. “Look, you know I support a lot of the goals of the Front but it seems like these guys, this cell is too reckless, and they may be using Liam’s trauma to make him do something that could get him pinched or worse. He belongs with you, and if we – and it IS we, - didn’t heed the signs that Liam was hurting, then we’ll fix it, but first, we find him.”

“We’re family, Niall.” Harry adds quietly. Niall starts to cry again, his face blazing red. He wipes at it with his whole arm until Harry and Zayn envelop him into a hug and let him sob against their shoulders.

 

They take a moment to discuss strategy. The Front has strong ties to the criminal element of the city. Harry used to run with the unsavory bunch in the enclave but they were a temperance squad next to the underbelly of Granite. Niall keeps a database tap on the hospitals, morgues, and lockups on his mobile comm unit and checks the readouts every few seconds. 

Harry asks Niall where Liam normally met up with his contact in the Front, Niall grimaced down at the floor and explained that he normally tried to give Liam his space when he sought the company of other Alphas especially Front members so he wasn’t too knowledgeable about how to start a search. He knows that the leader of Liam’s cell is called Dirk. He’s also scared that too much digging around might attract the wrong kind of attention; either the lawmen or the dangerous criminal element that moved fluidly in and around Front activities. 

In the end, it is Zayn’s call to his new sugar grass dealer, Ibn that sets them on the right path. Ibn is a beta- and quite an affable chap considering his line of work - but he was really the only criminal that they knew amongst them. He suggests they check out an Alphomega bar called the _Agatha_ not too many sectors away from Niall and Liam’s apartment. 

When they arrive, Niall gets strange, even mildly hostile looks when they enter but there isn’t a lot a beautiful omega like Zayn would be denied in a place like this. The Alpha barback didn’t take long to divulge the name of the slum bar that Dirk owns and where he conducts pretty much all of his business.

When they get outside Harry turns to Zayn.. “Baby, I don’t want you going with us.”

“Yeah, Zayn. We can take you back to mine and Liam’s while…”

“I’m going with you.” Is all he says and starts walking in the direction of the gate that will lead them to the lower stairwells. Harry gently takes his hand.

“Zayn the last time we were…”

“The last time we were two newbies just a few months out of Oasis. We’ve been living in Granite for the better part of a year now. Besides when someone tried to hurt me there, we handled it together.”

“I wouldn’t ever forgive myself if something were to happen to you while trying to find Liam, Zayn.”

Zayn turns to Niall. “And I would never forgive myself if I didn’t see this through. I have my Alpha with me, and I’m sure he won’t let anything happen so let’s go get Liam, yeah?” Zayn starts off again and this time Harry and Niall follow.

 

There are two things they had not counted on before they arrived at the second bar. 1) There is a huge blinking sign that reads  
  


**_“NO BETAS ALLOWED”_ **

and 2) the location is not so much a bar as a brothel. The name Midnight Memories is a bit of a giveaway, but it had already been a long night and none of them were as sharp as they normally would be.

 

"Well, looks like you two are up, then," Niall says bitterly. On Zayn and Harry's skeptical look around the neighborhood Niall replies "I still know how to take care of meself in the slums. I grew up here, ya know. Just bring my boy out to me." 

Zayn and Harry disappear inside after giving Niall twin squeezes on his shoulder.

When they enter the establishment they both have to take a small step back.

“Whew!” Harry exclaims. Despite the seriousness of the situation they both have to take a moment to laugh. The air is thick with sex and pheromones.

“We need to find Liam before I go into a spontaneous heat,” Zayn mutters.

A beautiful pale omegawoman with large round eyes and breasts Harry can tell are way more modestly sized than her dingy sequined corset would imply, slithers up to them. She laughs and offers them conama beans on a plate for a few pence each. Zayn readily pays for four and includes a tip. The woman glides away with a smile. Zayn passes Harry two and they both pop them in their nostrils. The sexual stench in the room decreases by half so the couple can concentrate on the task at hand. 

There is a parlor with a bar all along the back of it where the johns size up their quarry for the night. There seems to be an antechamber off to the right where the johns make their payment. Then there is a staircase in the opposite corner where pairs and groups disappear down into in a jangle of anticipation. When Harry and Zayn step in from the front vestibule, immediately all eyes are on them. Its not a record screech stillness but paying attention for more than a few moments reveals that every john is eying them with wariness and every whore is peering at them with hunger. 

It makes sense; by slum terms they look moneyed even in their second hand clothing. They are clearly healthy and well fed. They also are young and have been told on numerous occasions separate and together that they are attractive, another stark contrast to the other prospective johns, many of which are missing multiple teeth.

"What now?" Zayn sighs. There is no guarantee that Liam is even here and if he is, he certainly isn’t anywhere in this parlor. 

"Well we need to do a bit of talking to folks, I guess?" Harry is already making flirty eye contact with multiple omegawomen and men. The Alphas present were about the only ones who showed no interest beyond quickly appreciating Zayn’s looks. A/A/o was a rare configuration in general but it was virtually impossible with a bonded couple unless the goal was for it to end in a fight to the death.

Zayn appreciates that Harry is truly in his element. He had never worked anywhere as seedy as this back home; hell Oasis's sewer system was less seedy than the shiniest part of Granite's slums but Harry was just a natural charmer. Part of it was Alpha confidence, but most of it was just Harry. It was the reason why cashiers and shop girls blushed when he winked at them, and despite the graveness of their task, a pleasurable sight to behold. Zayn was more than happy to let Harry do his thing.

Likewise Zayn believed his shyness was more attributable to himself as a person and not his omega status. For instance the skinny omegawoman directly across from him at the bar crossing and uncrossing her legs in the shortest tightest dress Zayn had ever seen didn't seem very shy, and when the barrel chested Alpha she was talking to leaned down and took a long appreciative sniff she smiled at her accomplishment. Nope. Shyness was not strong in that one.

Zayn is pulled back to the task at hand when one of the starry eyed girls Harry had been chatting up places a hand on Harry's cock and giggles that she might be inclined to pay them if she could get "all of this” inside her. Zayn kindly removes her hand from the heated lump at the front of Harry's tight pants and smiles at her sharply.

"Don't worry I wouldn't leave you hanging handsome." She says with a glassy eyed wink at Zayn. "You an' I can take real good care of your Alpha and have some fun together too." She replies, eyes twinkling at the concept. "Gosh I'm getting so wet just thinking of you both in my cunt at the same time."

Zayn is working out a way to send the daft girl away and can tell by Harry's amused expression he's going to be of limited help, but he's spared having to deal with her when the girl who sold them the beans earlier appears at Zayns other side.

"Isn't it time for your break, Katie?"

Katie’s features draw up cutely in a look of disgruntled confusion.

"No... I don't think so." Then when she catches on that maybe she's getting usurped her features get even stormier. "Back off, Darcey. You're not even on floor duty."

"And yet...."

Darcey misses the tumult of emotions that flit across Katie’s face since she's moved on to lazily inspecting her nails. After a few moments Katie gives up and stomps away.

"She's lovely but she's new. I wouldn't want your first experience at Midnight Memories to not be … memorable … so here I am."

"Here you are,", Zayn agrees. Darcey has a sharp eye not at all dulled by drugs, liquid courage, or a long time in this life. Zayn suddenly realizes that she is their best bet for finding information about Liam. Harry must agree because he leans down to whisper in her ear, "So how does this go exactly?'

Buying a prostitute is not in their family budget per se, but they manage. Zayn suspects they have been charged more than the average customer, but if this gets them access to the lower level it's worth it.

Darcey leads them downstairs, which seem to be comprised of endless hallways lined with rooms. When they get to hers she discreetly presses her thumb to the keypad and the door snicks open. Zayn has barely closed the door back before she's disrobing and heading to her medicinal chest for the antibacterials. 

"Hey,” Harry touches her elbow.. "Look we’re just here for information."

"I knew it was too good to be true.. So you’re the laws, then?" she asks with an eye roll, crossing her arms and regarding them, annoyed and expectant.

“No nothing like that we’re just looking for a friend. Alpha. Name is Liam Payne. We were told he might be here." Zayn is leaning forward with a picture he'd pulled up on his mobile.

"I don't need a picture. I know who he is. They call him Payne-O or Ox. He keeps to himself but he's kind," she adds wistfully.

"Is he here?" Zayn asks.

"Maybe…… he comes and goes out the back entrance... I can show you where his room is can't get you in though."

"Why are you so ready to help us?" Zayn asks.

"Couple weeks back an Alpha got a little rough with me. ... Ox,, —Liam,--,was the first one to come help me. Cleaned the bastard's clock but good, then held me until the medic got here. Kept whispering in my ear too. _You have worth._ He kept saying it over and over. I figure I owe him and the shit Dirk has him mixed up in.... I just... yeah." 

"Do you know what?" Harry asks.

"Not completely but I'm pretty sure he wants him to do a hit. "

"Kill?" Harry asks quietly.

"If my understanding of their rudimentary codes and whatnot is worth any weight, yeah."

"I don't think Liam would do that..." Zayn says. 

"Yeah well Dirk has a talent for pressing just the right lever in people to make them do what he wants. ... he tells Liam to “remember Cagland” to him a lot. ... Wait that means something to you, don't it?"

Cagland is the name of the Alpha farm where Liam had been imprisoned.

"Yes," Zayn and Harry answer together.

 

As luck would have it, Liam is in his room.

"I'm not hungry but thank you. He calls through the door when they knock.

"Liam, it's Harry and Zayn open up." Zayn replies. The door flies open to reveal an alarmed unkempt Liam.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" It all comes out as one hysterical word. His eyes are blood shot and his body is jittering a bit. Has he lost weight? It’s only been a week but the thoughtful man they call brother has been replaced by this wild-eyed stim user before them. Liam looks up and down the hallway ushering them in roughly. "You shouldn't be here. This is no place for you," Liam tuts.

"This is no place for you!" Zayn grouses. He wants to cry and physically shake Liam, all at once.

"How is Niall? Is he well?" Liam asks. "Oh I miss him. I know he doesn't want to see me. ..."

"We’re here with Niall. He sent us to come and get you."

"Did he?" Liam starts gnawing on his nails as Harry gently ushers him to the little round table in the center of the room. Harry knows that Li needs to be calmed and soothed not yelled at or alarmed so Zayn leaves him to it, rummaging about until he finds a cup and fills it with water for Liam. When he gets back, Harry already has Liam talking on his mobile to Niall. He can hear Niall’s loud relieved voice coming down the line as he sits next to Harry and holds his hand.

Liam doesn’t agree to leave this place outright. He aches to see Niall but that’s not enough to make him abandon his work here. He gets tight lipped and unresponsive when Zayn asks him about his mission. They’re counting on Niall to be able to talk some sense into him. Liam hands the phone back to Harry, and Harry confirms with Niall that they will meet at the tram station a few blocks east of Midnight Memories. Liam is putting on his jacket when the three of them are addressed from the doorway. 

“I didn’t realize you were expecting company… or that you were going out for the evening.” 

Dirk.

“Yeah, these are my friends from ho… from the sectors. We’re just popping out for a bit. Getting caught up and that.” Liam says, all false breeziness. Both Harry and Zayn share a look at how Liam doesn’t refer to his apartment with Niall as home anymore, at least not with Dirk.

“Ah, but certainly with our timetable you can enjoy the company of your friends right here at Memories. We can send any kind of food or drink or boys or girls. Your friends are our friends, Liam.”

“We wouldn’t want to break the rules of your establishment,” Zayn speaks up. 

“Pardon?”

“Your rules against betas. We have a third friend, Niall. Perhaps Liam’s mentioned his mate to you?” Harry adds.

“Ah yes, the beta Liam lives with.”

“His _mate_ , yes, and…” Zayn begins. Dirk cuts him off.

“Betas aren’t mates. They can’t be mates. They are incapable of loving with their every molecule, every blood vessel like us.”

“And yet Niall has never left Liam’s side in the past four years despite not having a biological mandate to do so,” Zayn seethes, not understanding how Liam can allow Dirk to speak about Niall and their relationship in such a dismissive way. 

Dirk smiles like a shark and regards Liam.. “Well if all the sector omegas are this mouthy, I can almost not blame you for picking a barbarian to play house with.” 

Liam rouses and begins to protest at the slur. Zayn’s fist clenches and he opens his mouth to tell Dirk just exactly what he can do with his condescending attitude, but Harry walks cooly up to Dirk instead, looks him directly in the eye heedless of the man’s status as a crime boss and calmly states,

“If you ever speak ill of my mate again either directly or indirectly, I will tear your throat out with my teeth. Do you understand me, friend?” 

Dirk seems ready to flex but then he just laughs and regards Liam again.

“You should have told me about your fierce Alpha friend and his formidable mate. My apologies for any offense to you either of you.” He inclines his head toward Zayn. Zayn uncurls his fists at his sides but that’s the only ground he’ll cede. 

 

“So, can we take our friend to see his mate or is Liam forbidden from leaving this place?” One of Harry’s foremen at the job, Cal runs informal meditation classes in the evenings for the workers who want it. Harry is cycling through every calming respiratory method he can remember, knowing that the last thing this situation needs is for two Alphas to be embroiled in an intense showdown with a third standing agitated and hopped up to the teeth with stims. 

“Liam is allowed to do whatever he goddamn well pleases. I’m not in the business of oppressing Alphas. I leave that to the betas. I meant what I said though, your friend can come. I’ll make the exception since Liam is such a close personal comrade. I’ll alert my guards at the alley entrance. Liam makes a face.”

“Ox, please. I don’t want him upsetting the customers and workers in the main galley upstairs.”

“It’s fine,” Liam says and accepts Harry’s mobile when he hands it to him.

Ten minutes later, Niall is outside Liam’s door, the two Alphas charged with escorting him are headed back up the hall apparently too ready to be done with the task of shepherding betas to the rooms of their lovers. When Liam opens the door, they just stare at each other wordlessly for nearly a full minute and then Liam pulls him inside and they are embracing. Liam sighs a watery, “Niall” into his hair. Niall responds with, “Oh gods, Liam,” and they stay like that for several more moments.

There isn’t a lot of room to give them their privacy so, Harry and Zayn stay in the small living area and leave Niall and Liam to the bed extending from the right side wall. Hearing them murmur softly is music to Zayn’s ears, the sooner Niall can talk sense into Liam the sooner they can get out of this nightmare.

It’s late and they’ve all had a day, so it’s not surprising when Zayn finds himself curled up on the small loveseat dozing a bit and looking over Harry’s shoulder where he sits on the floor leaned against the loveseat. Harry is responding to an hours old text from Louis letting him know that they’re all right and they didn’t come into El’s because something serious happened. Louis is concerned and he sends lots of love and good luck to them all from him and El. He’s a good lad and El is a good las in Zayn’s book.

Zayn falls asleep gently scritching the short hairs on the nape of Harry’s neck, while Harry leans his head back into it and falls asleep with his mouth wide open.

 

Zayn wakes up to shouting. Not the best way to come into a new morning.

 

Dirk has come back. Liam and he are standing toe to toe, both livid. Liam is blocking Niall with his larger body in a standard Alpha protective stance. Niall is wearing his own grimace, and Harry is standing a few paces from the love seat looking just as perplexed and groggy as Zayn feels. 

“You had no authorization to tell a fucking _beta_ about our plans. A beta?!” Dirk roars. 

“He’s not _’a beta’_ or a barbarian or any of those things. He’s a my mate!” Liam thunders back. 

There is a roiling in the pit of Zayn’s stomach. Bonded or no, waking up to this much Alpha anger has him whining a bit in the back of his throat. Harry, either sensing Zayn is awake through the bond, or hearing the whining, rushes back over to the love seat and immediately starts caressing Zayn’s face and neck.

“Guys!” he calls over his shoulder at them. He has to repeat himself louder as they don’t hear him the first time. “Can we take it down about five notches, please?” Liam’s and Niall’s faces soften as they look over in contrition. They offer a synchronized “Sorry, Zayn,”,” and the tension in the room seems to ratchet down instantly. 

Dirk’s face softens too but not into something as nice as an apology, it’s more like a sneer. It takes Zayn’s mind a moment to identify the look as … jealousy? It hardly makes sense, if an Alpha of Dirk’s stature in the underground wanted a mate, there couldn’t be any shortage of omegas ready to submit to him. 

Zayn thinks it’s probably something stupid. Zayn reads Front propaganda from time to time and even some of the more learned and literate scholars view omegas with a veiled contempt, thinking them complicit in beta domination and Alpha oppression. After all plenty omegas sought out Alpha farms to get the knots of unwilling Alphas. Many omegas found beta mates to settle down with because, of the two, omegas were just more accepted by beta society than Alphas. 

Zayn and Harry join the others at the center of the room, near the table. There are papers, mostly pictures and poorly written notes strewn all over it. The pictures look like surveillance footage from some of the street cams in the upper sectors. They are all of the same portly, unpleasant looking man.

“Who is Massimo Ferlengeti?” Harry asks before sliding into one of the seats at the table and bundling Zayn onto his lap. Liam and Dirk seem to share a look. Niall puts his hand on Liam’s shoulder and kisses the back of his neck. Dirk inclines his head toward Liam as if to say, ‘this is your story, you tell it.’

Liam looks down at the pictures and notes and blue prints on the table then sits down heavily, Niall squats down next to him and takes his hand. Dirk seems moments from mutiny at this display but then Liam begins to speak. 

Liam begins a low, mechanical recitation as if he’s reading off science notes and not the deepest most horrible experiences of his past. He speaks low enough that Harry and Zayn have to lean forward in their chair and watch his lips in order to catch everything. Dirk has clearly heard this before so he just keeps a closed fist on the table and presses down as Liam speaks.

“I don’t… I don’t remember the faces of the people who …of the people who used me but… I remember him. He was in charge of the facility. He didn’t even see us as men, he would look right through us, or sometimes … …. … the older ones, the ones who had been there for a long time, they couldn’t … they couldn’t stay hard or they couldn’t knot properly. He would give them a fistful of drugs. Just put a funnel into their mouths and flush it through with water. It would keep them ready all day but it hurt them. It hurt them so much, and they would scream and beg for mercy, beg to be killed sometimes. He would just frown down at them like malfunctioning equipment and send in the next customer. He doesn’t deserve to live, to share air with any decent men.” Liam says that last with an edge of steel in his voice.

Dirk piggybacks on the end of this with fire in his eyes. He addresses Zayn directly. “Imagine your Harry trussed up like that, treated like a brood animal? This is the fate of so many Alphas. You have to see that he needs to be taken out.”

Zayn grabs Harry’s hand at the very thought of it. 

“See, you both know what I’m saying is right,” Dirk says vindicated.

“What I know,” Niall begins “Is that you took a man who has been through years of trauma and suffers from PTSD but who doesn’t have a cruel or ugly bone in his body, got him off his meds, replaced ‘em with stims, probably from your own private stock that you sell to kids here in the slums, then convinced him the only way he can help himself and help other Alphas is to kill. That’s what I know.”

“Fuck all the way off, barbarian! You don’t know shit. All you know is he’s not your neutered Alpha on a leash anymore,”,” Dirk replies.

“Fucking fuck you, Dirk!” Liam quickly glances over at Zayn to make sure he’s ok before getting his anger back under control, then he looks back to Dirk to finish his point. “Remember, mate, we’ve sparred and I wiped the goddamn floor with you. Imagine what I could do to you if I wasn’t pulling my punches. Call me neutered again and you’ll find out.”

“LOOK, I think I’ve been quite … lenient and understanding about all this,” Dirk pauses to gesture with his arms out, “but make no fucking mistake, every Alpha in the Bottoms and half the ones in the sectors belong to me. I am the Lead Alpha for this whole shit. I’m not some pup that doesn’t know his knot from a doorknob, I can and will end you.”

“So is that what Alpha liberation is, freeing oneself from the boot of betas so they can fall in line under one MegaAlpha or die by your hand should they disobey you?” Zayn asks. 

“But that’s just it!” he bangs the table. “We’re not free and we won’t be until someone with a plan and vision to see the plan through gets everyone together.”

“Yes and I’m sure when we get this freedom, you’ll have no problem letting us live our lives without your control?” Harry asks.

“You think I’m the enemy but I’m not.” Dirk shoots a look to Niall but Liam’s biting look makes him leave the _“He is!”_ unsaid. 

“You’re not the enemy.” Harry gets a surprised look from everyone in the room including Dirk. Zayn is twisted around in his lap looking at him. “You’re not… you just…. Do you know how many of our babies are lost every year?” Zayn and Harry both experience an identical spike of pain together, not sure who is sharing the emotion with whom. Zayn closes his eyes at the burn of it. Harry continues.

“Alphomegas are dying off. Everyone knows it. In the enclaves there are lots but the enclaves are small compared to the metropolises. Seems like to me, we need to concentrate more on building us up and less on sticking it to the people who have wronged us, because if you think killing Ferlengetti is gonna be the end of it you’re so off base, mate. The laws will do everything in their power to find who killed him. They’ll most probably find Liam and the three of us will get pinched for aiding and abetting. You’ll try to pay someone off to save your skin but it won’t be enough because he’s too powerful for you not to be punished for your hand in it. Then your movement will be without a leader and at least two Alphas and an omega that you claim to be such and advocate for.” Harry pauses and Zayn takes up the narrative.

“Tell me, how many of your men can read? How many know anything besides the recipe for making the most addictive stims and how to fuck or shoot a gun? How can you say you want equality for Alphas when you exploit them?”

“Look everything you’re saying sounds really good. Real kumbaya shit we’re talking… but the fact remains that we have a plan in place. Liam has obligations and that’s the end of it. ”

“But it’s not though.” Liam stands. “I was trying to keep the people I love out of this but I can’t, and what they’re saying is making sense to me. … I started working with the Front when they were helping shut down Alpha farms and illegal med labs that experiment on us and whatnot. I let you convince me that getting revenge on the man who hurt me was part of the greater good but now… I don’t know. …… I want out of this job.”

“Ah so I’m just supposed to let the four of you walk out of here with high level knowledge of our activities? Would you each like to take a complimentary whore for your trouble?”

“You can keep your whores but you are going to let us go because I have this.” Niall brandishes his mobile.

“A comm unit? Yes I’m going to let you go because you have a common piece of tech that everyone in the sectors has.”

“No, I have this file.” Niall taps the screen. It contains snapshots of all the details to this plan. “It’s sitting in a time-release capsule linked directly to a secure remote server. If anything should happen to me, it goes directly to my friend, Deputy Chief Ryan in the upper sector law department. Beta society is corrupt. I can see that, and maybe – even though I have Alphomegas in me life that I love as family – I haven’t done enough as a beta to try and stop the abuses, but, buddy, if the unfair advantage I have as a beta will keep my man from under your boot, then so be it.”

Dirk looks ready to split in two. 

“You let them into Front business, Liam! Not me. You said you didn’t want to drag them into it but you did anyway so now they’re in it and now you’re pulling this shit?!”

“We don’t’ want any trouble, hell we don’t want to stop you from doing what you do. If we read about Ferlengetti getting knocked we’ll probably do a toast in your honor, to be honest, but you’re going to have to find another executioner,” Zayn states. 

“What if I don’t believe you?” Dirk asks.

“Then try your luck, I suppose,” Niall says almost like he’s bored with the conversation. 

“We just want what you keep saying you want,” Liam says quietly. 

“Freedom,” Harry finishes. 

Dirk walks over to Liam gets right in his face and growls. “Take your pathetic friends and your barbarian boyfriend and get your, sorry asses the fuck out of my establishment. If you ever come down this end, bring an army because I won’t care about a fucking computer file. I will cut you up into little pieces come what fucking may. Understood?”

“Completely.” Liam responds.

The foursome emerge from Memories blinking up at the light of day. The sun does Liam no favors. He looks pallid and weak. They don’t talk much as they walk back from the slums to the sectors. They take separate trams hugging long enough to get a few confused looks at the station.

“I’ll call ya a bit later.” Niall promises.

When Zayn and Harry get home, Zayn goes directly to his alter. When they first got the apartment, it was just a tiny table fished from a bin in the upper sector covered by a bit of cloth and the prayer beads Zayn brought with him from Oasis. Now it’s grown to include sketches of each member of his family, a picture of Harry, the beads, some smooth flat ancestral stones, a candle, and a sprinkling of wrapped candy. Zayn lights the candle and stays down on the floor, head bowed and eyes closed. 

Usually Harry gives him his space to worship as he needs to but today he gingerly sits beside Zayn and bows his head as well. Neither one of them have stopped thinking about their baby girl, Safaa since they were back in the slums. They did a good job of focusing on getting out of their situation but now that they are alone, all they have is each other and their grief. 

Zayn adds a new picture to his alter, Safaa in her blanket with her tiny little cinnamon face, eyes closed and peaceful looking. A few errant curls wreath her features. She had Harry’s eye shape, and Zayn’s nose. She was perfect. They spend the rest of the day in bed taking care of each other and planning. They don’t’ want what they are feeling to go to waste. It’s easy for a Bonded pair to feel like each others’ purpose, but after a long talk they realize they have something else on which to focus.


	5. Epilogue: On the Horizon

It takes Liam a few weeks to start feeling like himself again. He gets a new prescription of his meds but above all else he starts talking to a counselor that specializes in sexual abuse and rape survivors. He’d never talked to a professional and Niall didn’t want to push him, but now they realized it was what he needed. Niall paid more attention and, in the past, when he saw things he didn’t like, he kept it to himself; now, through the help of the monthly couples sessions he knew how to address the things that concerned him. In fact, even at work he can be heard encouraging coworkers to use their “I statements” in the event of dispute and admonishing those who did not uphold a “safe space” to express one’s feelings.

Watching Niall and Liam work through their issues using a professional spurred Harry and Zayn to do the same. Harry’s medical coverage wasn’t as good as Niall’s but they were able to afford a few sessions with a counselor’s assistant so they could unpack some of the grief they had been feeling at the loss of Safaa.

The entire episode with Liam had served as a wakeup call to both Harry and Zayn. Theirs was, by far, not an easy life but it was in many ways charmed. Trouble came but they seemed to escape the worst of it. Even their exile was a presumed death sentence, but they’d managed to not only survive but to build a life for themselves. That made it easy to forget that the rate for Alpha unemployment was four times that of betas, many omegas sold themselves as indentured consorts. Alphas and omegas were almost scared to properly bond and mate. They had intimate knowledge of how hard it is to even have a viable pregnancy outside of the enclaves. 

 

They realized this would be the reality for as long as people just stood by and let it happen. Their all day discussion when they got back from helping Niall find Liam was their first planning meeting. 

Now when they meet at El’s once a week, they spend at least an hour coming together and strategizing with Niall, Liam, Louis, and Eleanor. If Dirk didn’t have the answers, it didn’t mean there were no answers to be had. 

After a few weeks of planning, Louis converts some of his storage room to a small classroom. They dedicate a day for beginning readers, intermediate readers, and advanced readers. Harry, Louis, and Zayn teach each class respectively. They get the word out the best they can with limited resources and word-of-mouth.

The initial response is staggering. 

People stand in line to get in, some of them have their own books that had been in their families for generations, and they finally have someone to help them unlock the words they had never understood. 

Things start rolling at a pretty rapid pace. Niall and Liam co-teach health and nutrition classes once a week. Louis starts offering discounts to those who bring nonperishable foods, which are used to start a food bank for those in need. El uses their kitchens to host cooking classes at least twice a month. Zayn starts to incorporate current events and calls to social action in his advanced reading class. Liam often sits in even though he is actually a student in Harry’s class of beginners.

As they grow they get more volunteers, more donations, and more in kind services. None of them have deep pockets, but when they all pitch in, they can implement all their plans. In six months, the Lower Sector Mutual Aid Collective receives it’s first large credit dump from an anonymous donor, well technically it is anonymous but the note attached to the transaction reads, “ _For your kumbaya bullshit.”_

Niall had been keeping in touch with Bressie, and he supports the efforts by sending a cache of donated books from the Shegara Library. There are scientific and medical journals that dealt with Alpha and omega physiology as well as parenting books, and manuals on harmonious mating. 

The eight month of the LSMAC’s or “Less Mack” as folks had taken to calling it, existence is a big one. First, Darcey comes in for her usual Intermediate Reading and Numeracy class looking flushed and happy. Louis notices the difference in her smell but doesn’t know what to make of it. Zayn is just coming in to gather some materials to plan his next class when he stops dead in his tracks.

“Darce?” he questions. She smiles big.

“Are you?” he asks. She nods her head yes rapidly.

“Who?!” Zayn asks, by this time there are a few more people who have filtered into the classroom and they too are curious. 

“Alton… takes the money at Memories.” Zayn can’t fully picture him but he knows they interacted with him the one and only time they had been there. 

“So I supposed you have to look for another line of work then?”

“Oh that’s already in motion. I’m down at the livery house coordinating the caravans in and out of the city. I love it. Still get to meet lots of people, don’t have to let any of them pound me. It’s a welcome change, really.” Zayn loves her dry sense of humor.

Alton comes in with Darcey the following day and they wind up being El’s star pupils in her cooking class. This is how Zayn and Harry meet their first Bonded couple other than themselves. 

In the middle of the month, a shipment from Cowell’s company arrives. The school gains six refurbished deck units for study and research. Each system comes pre loaded with the latest in educational games and applications. Zayn had mentioned his labor of love to Cowell in passing but had not realized it would lead to such an amazing gift. When he asks about it, Cowell simply says that everyone deserves a chance to realize their dreams. Zayn has to excuse himself because Cowell is a kind and fair man but he’s not an overly sentimental one, so Zayn wanted to spare him the fountain of tears that his amazing generosity had provoked.

On the final day of the month Harry is kneeling between Zayn’s spread legs struggling to open a birth control pellet when Zayn reaches up and takes it out of his hands.

“No, just you. I’m ready.” He says just before his heat takes over completely.

“Are you sure?” Harry whispers. 

“Yes, please. I need you.” Harry discards the package and slides into Zayn without another thought. Harry moves slowly inside Zayn, the usual urgency that accompanies their heat coupling is replaced with an intense certainty. They stare into one another’s eyes until the end. When Harry starts to come his eyes close and quakes on top of Zayn whose thighs are locked around his waist as Harry empties into him in waves.

The following month Zayn finds out he is pregnant and Louis offers drink specials at El’s all night. On the eve of LSMAC’s one-year anniversary, everyone finds themselves getting ready for the fundraiser/celebration for the following day. They even have a few of their most dedicated volunteers making decorations and helping El bake and ice cupcakes. Zayn is in the storeroom when Niall and Harry come in the room eyes as round as dinner plates.

“What?” Zayn asks half smiling half alarmed. There are tears in Harry’s eyes but he’s smiling so Zayn doesn’t know what to think. Harry walks right up to him and kisses him full on the mouth then takes his hand and leads him into the main classroom.

They sit in front of the teacher’s terminal and Niall excuses himself leaving Harry and Zayn in the class alone. 

“What’s this about, Harry, you’re scaring me.” Zayn tries to keep it light but there is a bit of a tremor in his voice.

“Bres sent this to Niall … seems sent a message a while ago and he finally got a response. Niall didn’t want to say anything just in case … but…” 

Zayn is thoroughly confused until Harry hits play on the message screen. Bressie’s face is replaced with Trisha, Zayn’s mother siting around her are Doniya, Waliya, and Safaa. In the back, stands his father. He gasps and clutches the desk at which he sits. They all look so, so _old_. His parents look positively ashen and his baby sisters look so grown up and wise beyond their years. 

“Hello, Sunshine… when we heard that we had a message from someone in Shegara I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t even know who could be sending me a message from so far away … I have mourned you every day and mourned my own self for failing you. Now I hear you are living and loving and strong… helping others be strong in your community. Your friend Bressie speaks the world of you and your mate. I’m just …” Trisha lowers her head to weep. Yaser rubs her neck and shoulders and Doniya speaks plainly. 

“We miss you. We’re sorry, and we’re so proud of you, Zayn,” she says. “If you can ever forgive us we would love to hear from you. I am so in awe of you little brother.”

“No one sings the Song of Light like you, Zayn,”,” Waliya adds. Safaa just stares reaching toward the screen every few moments. Finally his father speaks.

“You have become the man that you never would have been able to become had you stayed here. Our society is in a bit of turmoil now… so many people are rebelling against the old ways. I thought I was doing the right thing when I made those deals to get you exile instead of prison or a marriage you didn’t consent to. Now I know I should have fought for _you_ not this society or its traditions. We may never see you again or get to hold you in our arms, but it’s enough to know you are safe and well and you are living the life you should have been able to have here.” 

They all say their goodbyes in turn and then the vid stops. 

Zayn is completely incapable of speech. At some point, Niall had returned and brought Liam and Louis with him. Zayn stands and turns to them, his knees buckle and Harry is there to catch him. When Zayn finally starts to wail, his brothers and his mate hold him up and envelope him in a cocoon of security. 

It takes a while but Zayn final sends a halting message back through Bressie. Oasis only accepts message protocols from other enclaves, but Bressie is an eager go-between. He was just so happy that Zayn wasn’t mad about him contacting his family without permission but he felt they should know what their son was doing out in the world to make it better. Zayn very sincerely tells Bressie that he is forever in his debt. He was able to provide something that Zayn wasn’t even aware that he needed.

Zayn’s message to his family is devoid of any bitterness. He understands what it’s like to feel trapped in ones circumstances, and he honestly can’t be angry with them when exile was the best thing that could have ever happened to him. He doesn’t sugar coat anything. He tells them all that he and Harry have been through since leaving Oasis. His message has to be broken up into three parts because it goes on for too long. In the end though, this is the life that Spirit had intended for him. He can feel it deep within himself and the trials of his life made him ready for it. 

Zayn shows them every bit of his life. The Malik family sheepishly at first then more boldly as time progresses directly address Harry, as Zayn’s videos frequently include him in them. At first Harry remarks that he doesn’t want to intrude but Zayn points out that they’re his family too. The Maliks seem to agree. 

Harry, who had never had a family before learns the most valuable lesson about families through this process: Families are about forgiveness. 

Harry gets another promotion and Cowell hires Zayn on directly as a Domestic Operations manager for his home, supervising the servants, making schedules, and handling all communications. This means that they make enough money to move into Liam and Niall’s building. Everyone helps move their stuff, and Liam, who has always been in awe of Zayn’s artistic talent, watches him spend long hours painting the mural in the nursery. He comments on each element with a pleased smile. Harry can’t be around the wet paint fumes for very long so he just peaks in from time to time wearing a mask and giving an enthusiastic thumbs up. Niall asks if Zayn will add him to the wall collage but Zayn jokes that he doesn’t like him.

Between LSAC and living in the same building together, Harry, Niall, Liam, and Zayn see each other every day of their lives. Louis and El are around enough that they can say they practically live at Niall and Liam’s as well. As it happens everyone is over Harry and Zayn’s when Zayn falls into somnolence. He is able to announce to the room, 

“Guys it’s time,” before losing consciousness.

They can afford a midwife this time, an omega woman who volunteers at the center frequently. She sits with Zayn massaging his side and taking readings. Harry is a bundle of anxiety beside Zayn until late the next day when their pod emerges, a healthy color and size. Two hours later a just awakened Zayn holds his beautiful, healthy omegagirl. 

Zayn makes a quick message to Oasis just so he can introduce the new addition to the family, Safiya Doniya Malik~Styles.

 

Harry stands beside Zayn more erect than he’s ever stood in his life. Zayn stands proudly beside him. The community that forged them, relied on them, and supported them looked on with nothing but joy and pride in their hearts. 

“We are gathered here today to honor and give sanction to the union of Alphomega souls today.” The officient begins. Five Bonded couples stand before him including Harry and Zayn. The ceremony had actually been Yaser’s idea. It was good to commemorate such a momentous occasion with ceremony even if the most important links took place in the blood. Zayn had agreed and thought it would be just another way to bring their burgeoning community together. He had no idea how profoundly this full circle moment would impact him.

Later that night while little Safiya is in the process of discovering her toes between them, Zayn looks over at Harry and says,

“Choosing you was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“Being chosen by you is the best thing that has ever happened to mine.” He kisses the top of Zayn’s head and then the entire Malik~Styles family settles in to sleep, looking forward to what the next day will bring. 

They know that since they’ll be together, they’re ready for it.

Fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO MUCH for reading this. Twas a labor of love. Big Thank You to the Big Bang organizers. :)


End file.
